Scholarship luncheon unites donors with recipients
By Veronica Jauriqui
On her personal path to the Keck School of Medicine of USC, Jones also amassed quite a bit of student loan debt. Though the average amount of debt for a recent medical school graduate nears $140,000, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, for Jones it was nearly triple that.
“Can you believe that? It is like dealing in Monopoly money,” Jones said.
Scholarships become a lifeline in financing a student’s dream to become a physician. Twenty-one scholarship recipients took the opportunity to personally thank their scholarship donors on Nov. 18 at the Annual Scholarship Luncheon held in Hoffman Hall.
Jones herself has received numerous scholarships over the years, including the Frances Silver Primary Care Award, and gave the keynote speech at the event.
In her speech, she acknowledged the generosity of her patrons, Steven and Merle Sapkin, and told how their funding has given her opportunities to enhance her medical education that would be otherwise impossible. The scholarship aid also influenced her choice to pursue work in family medicine – one of the lowest paying among physician salaries.
“Family medicine is a difficult specialty to choose today,” she said to the nearly 80 people in attendance. “Through generous donors like all of you here today, I will not only be able to pay off what my husband and I lovingly refer to as ‘our debt’ in a shorter amount of time…but I have also been able to use some of these funds to enhance my education while in school.”
This has included volunteer outreach in places like Swaziland, Africa (which has the world’s highest HIV infection rate), as well as extracurricular opportunities like learning alternative therapies, nutrition and holistic patient care.
According to Erin Quinn, associate dean for admissions at the Keck School, scholarships allow students to pursue their passions without worrying about debt. “It frees students like Erin [Jones] to choose an area they are interested in that may not be as lucrative as a specialty field,” she says.
“These scholarship luncheons give donors a chance to meet the students they are funding. That is magic. They know the money they are giving to the Keck School is going to a good cause,” she says.
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The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned USC’s $6 billion fundraising campaign. The story noted that USC had already raised $1 billion in a “quiet phase,” including the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College.
The Guardian (U.K.) highlighted two major gifts to USC in a list of the 10 biggest philanthropic benefactors in America. The list included the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College, and the $110 million gift from USC Trustee and USC Viterbi School alumnus John Mork and wife Julie to create the USC Mork Family Scholars Program.
The New York Times featured the USC U.S.-China Institute documentary “Assignment: China — The Week that Changed the World.” The documentary, part of a series, examines media coverage of the 1972 Nixon trip that reshaped U.S.-China relations after a quarter century of isolation and hostility. “People look back now and take it for granted that the outcome was preordained,” said the institute’s Mike Chinoy, who produced the documentary. Voice of America also featured the story.
Los Angeles Times featured the Oscar Senti-meter, a tool developed by the USC Annenberg School, Los Angeles Times and IBM that analyzes thousands of tweets about the Academy Awards nominees. The story noted that Mexican actor Demian Bechir received an enormous boost on Twitter the day of the nominations, with a total of 6,893 tweets mentioning him, a 47-fold increase from the day before. The story noted the tool uses language-recognition technology developed in collaboration with USC Viterbi School’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab.
The Times of India (India) featured a three-day medical emergency training workshop organized in association with USC. At the workshop, held at GCS Medical College in India, 50 doctors and more than 100 paramedics learned how to improve emergency support systems. William Mallon of the Keck School of USC said that discussion topics included the use of portable ultrasonic devices to scan patients. “The ultrasound applications help physicians make accurate and timely decisions,” he noted. Daily News & Analysis (India) also featured the workshop.
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