ON MY MIND Fostering a Healthy Oregon Scholars for a Healthy Oregon Equates Student Support with Future Oregon Workforce By Jennifer Smith, Office of the Dean, OHSU School of Medicine IT’S SOMETHING OF A CATCH-22. Students who wish to pursue practice in rural or underserved areas are often burdened with large debt when they graduate. Meanwhile, rural Oregon is thirsty for health care providers. Some students feel deterred from even applying to a health care education program because the expected debt makes their career choice seem out of reach. What if debt from high tuition were taken out of the equation? In 2013, practicality and policy joined forces when key legislative officials partnered with OHSU to create the Oregon Healthy Scholars Initiative. When the Oregon Legislature passed SB 2, $2.5 million was allocated to cover tuition and fees for a limited number of eligible students entering specific clinical degree programs. The tuition support comes with an agreement to practice health care in an OHSU-approved Oregon site for one year longer than the number of years for which the student received funding. The funding can be renewed if the student maintains good academic standing. The first cohort of OHSU students in Scholars for a Healthy Oregon represents future physicians, physician assistants, nurses and dentists. The 20 awards were divided among the schools as follows: Œ Four awards to Master of Physician Assistant Studies students Œ Seven awards to Master of Nursing students in the Family Nurse Practitioner, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, Midwifery and Nursing Anesthesia programs Œ Three awards to Doctorate of Dental Medicine students Œ Six awards to Doctorate of Medicine students Travis “Alex” Polston is from Banks, Oregon, and is one of 139 students joining the OHSU School of Medicine during a time of educational change. YOUR M.D.—the school’s bold new curriculum to educate physicians that will be most needed by society in 20 to 30 years—launched in August 2014. “There is no better place to learn how to be a skilled, yet caring, physician in the 21st century than OHSU,” Polston said. Polston’s interest in medical school was sparked early in life. “Ever since high school, I knew that I wanted to work in public service. My mother was a single parent, and our experience living below the poverty line attracted me to working in the community around issues of social justice. While working on health care policy, I realized that physicians are some of the most powerful agents of compassion and change in our communities.” The Portland State University graduate worked for three years as a research assistant in OHSU’s Vollum Institute, where he saw the process of translating discoveries from the lab to the clinic. “We are entering the age of personalized medicine and it’s an exciting frontier,” Polston said. “I don’t think there has ever been a better time to join the medical profession.” At OHSU, Polston will pursue interests in family medicine and rural health. For Oregon and for the future of health care, it sounds like a healthy match. Alex Polston, Class of 2018, participates in active learning with his medical student peers. What if you could receive up to $50,000 for educational loan repayments and help improve the health of Oregonians with limited access to care? The National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Loan Repayment Program offers health care providers the opportunity to have their student loans repaid, while earning a competitive salary, in exchange for providing health care in urban, rural, or frontier communities with limited access to care. Details at www.theOMA.org/NHSC. w ww.theOMA.org Winter 2015 21
OMA Winter 2015 Magazine
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