College of Medicine

October 2015

Tiffany Smith-Sutton and Eric Walker are the latest College of Medicine students to receive National Health Service Corps scholarships.

The prestigious program offers a financial incentive for students to practice primary care in the areas that need it most.

The NHSC will cover four years of tuition, fees and other educational expenses for Walker and Smith-Sutton, both first-year students. In return, they’ll agree to serve at an NHSC-approved site for four years after they finish residency training. Those sites include medically underserved urban, rural or frontier communities across the nation. The program also will provide financial aid toward their living expenses in the form of a tax-free monthly stipend.

Smith-Sutton is from West Palm Beach and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of South Florida, where she also was a teaching assistant in the anatomy lab. She’s delighted for two reasons.

“As a member of the NHSC, I will have the opportunity to have the greatest impact by doing hands-on work in a community where the need is greatest,” she said. “And as a wife and mother of two, funding my medical education with the least amount of debt is top-priority. I am grateful beyond measure for this scholarship.”

Walker, from St. Petersburg, earned his undergraduate degree from Florida State and a master’s in public health from Florida A&M. He interned at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“For most individuals in my community, health care is a luxury,” he said. “If afforded the opportunity to serve as a National Health Service Corps member, I believe I will be able to connect with my patients in a very unique way because I would not be too far removed from their position.”

Previous College of Medicine students who’ve achieved NHSC recognition are Tanya Anim (Class of 2010), Komal D’Souza (Class of 2011), and Alyson (Lewis) Sanchious and Brett Thomas (Class of 2014).

Daniel Van Durme, chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Rural Health, encourages other students to pursue this opportunity.

“There are a handful of us here at the College of Medicine who are National Health Service Corps ambassadors,” he told Rural Health Association students last year. “Send your application to one of us first, and don’t wait until the last minute. The scholarship is extremely competitive. The biggest thing they’re looking for is they want to make sure that you REALLY ARE going into one of those primary care fields and you REALLY ARE going to serve that community.”

For more information: http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/