Friday, March 29, 2019

LUCOM Student National Medical Association impacts community through academic scholarship

Fri, 29 Mar 2019Asa Keimig | LUCOM Marketing

Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine (LUCOM) – Student National Medical Association (SNMA) awarded Jacqueline Coles, a member of the Lynchburg community, the first-ever Lynchburg Advantage Scholarship, earlier today.

Victoria Johnson, president of LUCOM-SNMA, and Daryl Turner, vice president of LUCOM-SNMA utilized connections they had made in the community to promote the scholarship. The duo connected with Treney Tweedy, mayor of Lynchburg, who provided them with the contact information for members on the board of the Lynchburg City Schools. After several meetings with the influential leaders, the scholarship information was then distributed to local high schools.

The scholarship was developed by LUCOM-SNMA student-doctor leadership specifically to expand the opportunity for high school students, in need of financial assistance, that are interested in the healthcare field. “We felt that providing this opportunity would be a good way to show that LUCOM is for the community, and to further develop a relationship between the medical school and the underserved areas of Lynchburg,” said Victoria Johnson, Class of 2021. “Students that show interest in this field, should be praised and not dissuaded from their goals. The scholarship is to be used for standardized tests, preparation materials for those tests and college applications.”

Johnson believes that LUCOM-SNMA, as an organization that promotes cultural humility, should demonstrate said humility through service towards their fellow man. “As we serve, we can create change in this world by giving others the opportunity to positively change their lives – which hopefully leads to that person changing the world in which they live in and others around them. Bringing people from different backgrounds into a field that could always use more diversity, allows for a better chance of developing personal relationships with communities that feel as if they’ve been forgotten about,” she said.

Based on the developed requirements of the scholarship application, LUCOM-SNMA leadership reviewed transcripts, community service hours, reference letters and personal essays to make their final decision to select a winner. “As president, it was important to make sure the mission and vision of SNMA was clearly demonstrated to the board, the members, and demonstrated through every program and service opportunity we took part in,” said Johnson. “One of our goals in the beginning of the year was to land a scholarship recipient and I am proud that we fulfilled this goal and many more. I wanted us to really know the community we serve, and make connections that we could impart to the new board. I wanted us to make a real impact at the school and in the Lynchburg community, inspiring those around us, particularly the youth showing them that they can do anything they set their minds to!”

For Turner, as vice president of LUCOM-SNMA, he was committed to creating a relationship between the underserved areas of Lynchburg and LUCOM. “My aim was to promote the understanding of humility, to promote service, to educate and show others that being in this field is possible – no matter your background,” he said.

The LUCOM chapter of SNMA is a student organization created to produce sensitive, qualified physicians to serve minority and indigent communities. SNMA focuses on providing its members with avenues that help foster an obligation to practice medicine within minority communities, instituting programs for the dissemination of health care information and the empowerment of minority communities, as well as, serving the fraternal needs of minority medical student-doctors.