Medical and Dental Scholars' Program

A report by a panel of consultants for medical education titled "A Statewide Plan for Medical Education in North Carolina" was adopted by the Board of Governors on November 16, 1973. The following recommendations to create a Medical Scholars Program are excerpted from that report:

We recommend that:

1. There be organized by the University, in cooperation, if feasible, with the Old North State Medical Society, a statewide program to interest more qualified minority students at the high-school and college level in medical careers, to improve opportunities for premedical education for such students, and to assure that premedical counseling is of the very best.

2. The University seek authority and funds to set up a program of special financial aid for North Carolina minority students who are admitted to medical schools in the State or to schools outside the State and who need financial help. Such a program should provide for scholarships as well as loans since experience has shown that this combination is necessary to attract many minority students into medicine and since scholarship aid from sources such as the National Medical Fellowship Fund is not insufficient for this purpose.

3. That the development of additional residency training opportunities within the State (Recommendation 1) be accompanied by an intensive organized effort to increase the number of minority medical graduates who accept such positions in North Carolina.

The following is an excerpt of the President's report to the Board of Governors on November 16, 1973, recommending actions consistent with the above recommendations.

E. Scholarship Program for Undergraduate Medical Students

Today there are only about 125 black practicing physicians in North Carolina, and 77 of them are graduates of Meharry Medical College. The three medical schools have increased their enrollments of minority students, and significant progress is being made in this effort. This year there are 46 minority students in the School of Medicine at Chapel Hill, 16 in Bowman Gray and 24 in Duke. Clearly, this effort needs more support.

The steps outlined [elsewhere in the report] will help to meet this need. A related problem exists, however, in the heavy burden which the costs of medical education impose upon qualified students of all races who are financially disadvantaged. In some instances these students find that they must pursue their medical education in schools in other states, where major scholarship assistance is made available to them.

I recommend that funds be requested from the General Assembly for the establishment of a program of undergraduate medical scholarship sponsored by the Board of Governors. It is recommended that fifteen such scholarships be funded, beginning in 1974-75, and that fifteen additional such scholarships be provided beginning in 1975-76, in 1976-77, and in 1977-78. Each scholarship would pay a stipend of $4,000 each year for four years, provided that the recipient is enrolled in an accredited medical school in North Carolina, and provided further that the recipient remains a full-time undergraduate medical student in good standing. Additionally, the scholarship would pay all tuition and academic fees. Qualified students of all races who are financially disadvantaged would be eligible.

This program, when fully operative by 1977-78, would support each year 60 deserving North Carolina students in the medical schools of the State, who might otherwise be unable to attend medical school or who might leave the State to study medicine. The students would be designated Board of Governors’ Medical Scholars. The Vice President for Student Services will work with the deans of the three medical schools in developing guidelines, procedures and criteria for the administration of this scholarship program.

In 1978, the Board of Governors adopted a similar program for dental scholars.