To help celebrate 35 years of tuition scholarships, the Foundation created two new scholarships to support diversity in Osteopathic Medical Students. We are proud and honored to present this first scholarship to Student DoctorGabriel Saez.

You can get information on our scholarship to support LGBTQ+ medical students {LINK HERE}.

The Foundation supports that “osteopathic medicine is modern medicine for the body, mind, and spirit” and that black, indigenous, people of color will benefit from physicians that bring this approach to their patient’s healthcare.

For the academic year, the Foundation presented ten scholarships for $10,000 each. You can learn more using {THIS LINK}.

Applicants for our HUG diversity scholarship must first meet the basic criteria for all our scholarships:

• Show a strong commitment to practicing medicine in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, or Washington State.
• Articulate an understanding of the principles and practices of osteopathic medicine in modern patient care.
• Demonstrate their past and future commitment to leadership and service beyond the practice of medicine.

Students who qualify and are interested in a diversity scholarship are then asked to answer one additional essay question and may submit one additional letter of reference.

“The greatest disparity I have seen in medicine based on social determinates of health was when serving as a medical missionary in rural Guatemala. During this experience I exclusively treated indigenous Mayan people in makeshift clinics based out of Christian orphanages and schools. These are people from a country with an economy devastated by a civil war and propped up by the drug cartel and sex trafficking to the demand of the United States. The hospitals, which would be condemned by our standards, are stocked with medical supplies only long enough for the politicians to get in some pictures for the local media before relocating them to the next photo op. There are no food banks. There are no EBT cards, food stamps, WIC program, unemployment insurance or L&I. There are no free cell phones or subsidized housing. There is no free lunch at the public school because there are no schools except for those provided by the missionaries. Every morning the children of these mission schools walk for many hours in the dark before sunrise to get to school where they are given an education and a lunch, which for many is their only meal of the day. They would be lucky to drink clean water and go without a parasite infestation.
“With no resources available, this is the kind of pioneer medicine that Andrew Taylor Still dealt with over one hundred years ago when he founded Osteopathic medicine. I see myself as an osteopathic physician continuing to better the healthcare outcomes of these people by supporting and volunteering for this medical mission and bringing my own team of student doctors and nurses to serve and support this community’s healthcare needs. In the course of this mission, however, there is only so much a medical team can do. The need is too great and the system in place makes the pursuit of healthcare equality so futile, that these people can only be restored and redeemed by the grace of God. The mission’s purpose is to heal this indigenous community by a holistic approach that goes beyond traditional healthcare by providing education through building schools, supporting healthy communities through planting churches and giving them hope through a relationship with Jesus Christ.”