Medical School Grants

Many young boys and girls have, at some point in their lives, dreamed of becoming a doctor someday. Some do go on, or have done so, to fulfill this ambition; but many others can’t or won’t for many reasons.

My youngest daughter had always wanted to become a doctor until she realized that she can’t stand the sight of blood and “dismembered body parts,” as she would put it, to stress her aversion to exposed blood and human organs. She decided to become a lawyer instead.

My daughter’s reason for not pursuing a medical degree is certainly not the standard cause why many people drop their childhood dream of becoming a doctor. A great number of them simply moved on to discover and pursue a different calling, apart from what they thought they wanted as dream-chasing children.

Even those who had their minds set on becoming doctors sometimes realize that they do not have the necessary intellectual capacity, as reflected in their grades, to pursue a medical profession. Others who are qualified to take up this profession are daunted by the long years they need to spend in medical school.

After all, medical students must commit to a four-year medical-related college degree, four years in medical proper, and three to 8 years of residency, depending upon their choice of medical specialty. While under residency, they are allowed to practice medicine only under the close supervision of attending physicians who must approve their diagnoses, prescriptions, and other medical-related decisions.

During their paid residency, they are assessed by their attending physicians according to bedside manners, emotional strength and stability, ability to work long hours and make sound decisions under pressure.

After their residency, they need to take up and pass licensure and certification examinations to be considered a specialist in a certain medical discipline within the state where they intend to practice their profession.

Perks of the Profession

Becoming a medical doctor is not all about hard work and long hours though. There are perks as well. For one, medical doctors are well respected in the communities where they are known to practice their profession.

Compensation-wise, they enjoy the highest pay among a wide range of occupations. In a 2008 survey, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that physicians received between $186,044 and $339,738 annually. Most private practitioners or those who join a group practice earn more than salaried physicians. Others advance to management roles in hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare settings.

To encourage more doctors to practice their profession in low-income communities, the government gives them better rates than hospital doctors in more progressive towns and cities.

There’s really no other way but up for physicians who continually study and gain expertise in their specialties and develop a good reputation among their fellow doctors and patients through their expertise, dedication, and hard work.

But just like most, if not all, good things in life, it takes extra servings of hard work and singleness of purpose to achieve them. Academic merit and discipline can’t also be ignored en route to a medical career, where your initial move is to make it to medical school.

While many schools have increased their quota for medical students due to our country’s need for more medical doctors, applicants are still required to take entrance tests to ensure that they have necessary intellectual aptitude and motivation to survive long years of medical education.

As a medical student, you will be required to spend your first two years listening to classroom lectures and working on laboratory experiments for subjects such as medical laws, microbiology, medical ethics, psychology, physiology, anatomy, and biochemistry. In your final one or two years, you will work with patients to gain experience in the diagnosis and treatment of illness under the supervision of qualified and experienced physicians in hospitals and clinics.

To qualify to take the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), you need to have at least a medical-related bachelor’s degree and letters of recommendation. Even if you have passed the MCAT, you still need to be interviewed by your chosen school’s admission committee to ensure that you have the character, personality, leadership qualities, compassion for others, etc. need for the profession .

During the interview, it’s also a good time to inform the school about your plans to search for a medical grant to finance your medical education. If you pass both written test and oral interview, then your school may able to help you find the necessary institution or philanthropic individual to help finance your medical course through a grant.

FAFSA Submission

As a matter of practice in the United States, you will need to submit your FAFSA or Free Application for Federal Student Aid to qualify for federal grants, scholarships and low-interest loans to help you finance your medical education.

Through the FAFSA, the U.S. Department of Education determines your degree of financial need and provides you with the type of grant or low-interest student loan you can avail of from the federal government. The Association of American Medical Colleges reported in 2007 that 85.5 percent of all medical graduates took out loans to cover their educational expenses.

A medical school is necessarily more expensive than your undergraduate course. You should expect to pay at least $20000 for every academic year, so you should be prepared to obtain this amount either from your parents or through a student loan or grant.

The latter option is easier said than done. Obtaining a grant is a competitive process, just like being admitted to a medical school. You will be judged not just on the basis of financial need, but also on your academic achievements and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) results. You will likewise be subjected to an extensive interview by a panel which will decide if you’re up to the challenge of spending many years in a medical school and long hours of medical practice.

After you hurdle this, your next challenge is to find an institution to help finance your medical education.

Pell Grants

FAFSA is your ticket to a Pell Grant, a legislated educational grant for students whose families do not earn more than $20,000 a year. You can avail of this grant through the FAFSA, which determines your estimated family contribution or EFC for your college education.

A Pell Grant is a plum grant provided by the federal government for students going for their first college degree. You can secure a maximum of $5,500 annually from this source, which may be enough to cover your undergraduate degree depending on your choice of school.

But this amount could go a long way in terms of reducing your cost of medical education. After eight years of classroom lectures and clinical study, and another 3 to 7 years of internship and residency, most medical students owe $100k or more for loans they used for their education. Anything to reduce your cost of medical education is a welcome relief and this could come only from grant money, like the Pell Grant, that every medical student should passionately seek out.

Grants for Medical Students

After completing your undergraduate degree, your quest for grants for your medical degree is entirely a different ballgame. You cannot avail of the Pell Grant anymore, but you can continue submitting your FAFSA form to be eligible for other student grants and low-interest student loans funded by the federal government.

You can also zero in on a research grant or fellowship or scholarship from private individuals, corporations and nonprofit organizations designed to help finance the continued education of deserving and promising medical students.

Some of these come in form of a research grant funded by the government or some private organizations with interest in medical research. If you’re an advanced medical student and are already working on your thesis or dissertation, you can tailor-made your subject to conform to the requirements of research grant-giving organizations, which may be interested in your research.

In this case, you don’t only get to fulfill one of the requirements of your graduation, but you also earn money from it to cover your expenses undertaking the research. Below are a few other grant-giving organizations to help deserving medical students:

• The American Medical Association (AMA). This is one of the largest organizations of physicians and doctors in the United States. It gives out grants in the amount of $2,500 as added incentive for students entering the medical research field.
• The National Institutes of Health (NIH). Like the AMA, the United State Department of Health and Human Services helps medical students fund their research by awarding them grant money.
• The New York Academy of Medicine. This New York-based organization awards grant money to students for worthwhile medical research devoted to improving the health of urban populations across the United States.
• The Howard Hughes Medical Institute. This is a Maryland-based nonprofit research institute known to have one of the largest educational endowment funds in the country. It gives funding to medical students undertaking various medical-related research projects.
• The American Medical Student Association. This is an organization founded by students in the 1950s to help themselves become ethical and better trained professionals. It’s now managed by a professional team which has released over $75 million in grant money since its founding. It networks with other foundations to raise funds to assist the educational needs of deserving medical students.
• Association of American Medical Colleges. Its primary purpose is as an accrediting body for medical schools, but its services also include giving merit-based grants to medical students.

A simple search on the internet for “medical school grants” or similar set of words opens doors to many opportunities in terms of individuals, corporations, and private foundation committed to help medical students finance their education. You can narrow down your search to specific criteria that jibes with your situation, such as the particular branch of medicine you wish to pursue, ethnicity or minority group, or locality. Your town, city, or state government may have something for you.

You can likewise check your medical school’s financial aid office for possible grants and scholarships. If it doesn’t maintain its own program, it may be able to refer organizations that do. You just need to create a list of grant sources, big and small, for which you quality and apply to them. The more grants you apply for, the greater your chances.