One of my personal goals is to inspire more medical students & other health care professionals to pursue primary care and/or serve underserved populations. However, the financial burden of school compared to other lucrative specialties often deters students from considering such a career. The purpose of this scholarship is to mitigate the financial burden of aspiring primary care practitioners. If you are genuinely interested, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d be happy to mentor you and guide you through the application process and beyond!
One of the best, if not the best, scholarship opportunities in the country is the NHSC Scholarship Program. The financial aid office will tell you the same. Here’s why:
- Your tuition and required fees are paid for.
- You receive a monthly stipend of about $1300-1500 for living expenses.
- You receive a generous annual payment for “other reasonable costs” for books, supplies, equipment, etc.
- If you are committed to primary care and/or desire to work with underserved populations, this is the perfect scholarship for you!
What’s the “catch”?
After completing residency, you commit to serve in an underserved area as a primary care physician for the number of years you received the scholarship for. E.g. if you applied for three years of scholarship, you must practice for 3 years in an underserved area.
What exactly is an “underserved area”?
These are federally designated areas that are either Medically Underserved Areas (MUAs) or Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs).
Medically Underserved Areas/Populations are areas or populations designated by HRSA as having too few primary care providers, high infant mortality, high poverty or a high elderly population. Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) are designated by HRSA as having shortages of primary medical care, dental or mental health providers and may be geographic (a county or service area), population (e.g. low income or Medicaid eligible) or facilities (e.g. federally qualified health center or other state or federal prisons).
Health Resources & Services Administration
Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) are designations that indicate health care provider shortages in primary care, dental health; or mental health
Bureau of Health Workforce HRSA
How am I expected to commit to primary care before experiencing it during my clinical years?
If you are questioning whether or not you want to pursue primary care, then unfortunately this scholarship may not be a good fit for you. The purpose of this scholarship is for students already interested or committed to primary care and to alleviate the weight of choosing this career path. Of course you are not expected to commit to a specialty before having experienced it! But if the scholarship for aspiring primary care physicians was open to other specialties, that would defeat the entire purpose of it. Primary care specialties see some of the lowest salaries (psychiatry, pediatrics, family medicine, general internal medicine). $300,000 of debt is much more manageable for a surgeon who makes $400,000 to $600,000 than to a primary care physician who makes $150,000 to $200,000.
Is this scholarship similar to the Health Professions Scholarship Program offered by the army?
Yes, it is! But instead of serving the army after your residency in exchanging for the number of years you received the scholarship for, you will be serving in underserved communities.
What residencies qualify as “primary care”?
- General Internal Medicine
- Family Medicine
- Pediatrics
- Obstetrics-Gynecology
- Psychiatry
When do I apply?
- The application usually opens in March and is due around late April.
- You can apply once you are accepted to medical school for a total maximum of 4 years of scholarship.
- The latest you can apply in your training is your second year of medical school, as the minimum years of commitment is 2 years for 2 years of scholarship support.
What do I need to apply?
- 2 letters of recommendation (1 academic, 1 non-academic)
- 3 essays
- Curriculum Vitae
How Do I Apply?
- You apply via an online portal.
- Bear in mind you will need to decide whether you want to complete your service as a full-time or part-time physician. If you work part-time during your service, it will take twice as long for you to complete it. For example, if you agreed to 3 years of scholarship support, you either work 3 years full-time or 6 years part-time.
What are the eligibility requirements?
- U.S. citizen
- Full-time student
- Be attending or accepted to the following programs:
- MD, DO
- DDS, DMD
- Physician assistant
- Nurse practitioner
- Nurse mid-wife
- Attend a school in U.S. territory
- Be eligible for federal employment
- No other existing service obligation (state or federal)
- Submit completed application
What can I do to prepare?
- Start building your application early! It’s highly competitive (more on this below) and requires you to have exposure/experiences.
- If your school offers an underserved track or program for medical students interested in primary care and underserved communities, apply for it!
- This will show that you are genuinely interested and passionate about the work.
- This is exactly what I did and I think it strengthened my application a great deal.
- Since you will have the most free time during your first year, seek volunteering experiences with underserved communities!
- It can be clinical or non-clinical!
- What matters is that you demonstrate your commitment.
- Check if you’ve worked in an underserved area before. You may not realize that you were!
- Pre-write your essays. Prompts may be found in the application packet from previous years and are the same every year (to my knowledge).
- I will share the prompts closer to the application window in case it changes.
- Generally, the essays are about patient-centered care, finding innovative solutions to a challenging problem, your contributions to the well-being of an underserved community.
- Just like personal statements, these essays must SHOW, not tell. That’s why it is so important to engage in genuine experiences.
- Start brainstorming around January and finalize your drafts over Spring Break!
- Essays are key to your application, similar to how important personal statements were for your medical school application. Don’t sleep on these!
- Your letters of recommendation should be from an individual familiar with your work in underserved communities!
Selection Factors – important!
- History of honoring prior legal obligations
- E.g. if you applied for a loan and never missed a payment, rent payments on time, etc.
- Academic performance
- Commitment to a career in primary care and working in underserved communities
Who receives priority for funding?
- Current/former NHSC scholars
- Likelihood that student will remain in HPSAs
- Disadvantaged background
How competitive is it? How many students receive funding after applying?
Highly competitive, unfortunately. Only 10% of applicants are selected. But you are also competing with other student healthcare professionals, not just medical students.
I was shocked to learn that I am one of two medical students to ever receive the scholarship at my school!
When do we find out if we received the scholarship?
Between September to October.
What if I received the scholarship and already applied for financial aid?
You can return it the loan you borrowed. Work with your financial aid office!
What if I change my mind and do not want to do primary care anymore?
You will need to pay back the amount of scholarship money rewarded to you plus interest. For this reason, if you have not had exposure to primary care and are unsure, this scholarship may not be a good fit!
Final Notes
My biggest piece of advice is to apply only if you are genuinely interested in taking care of underserved populations and committed to primary care. I think the most important selection factor is that you show your commitment through your essays and your experiences. If you are interested for the wrong reasons (financial only), that will probably be obvious to the committee.
I’m so happy you are here reading about this incredible scholarship opportunity and I would be more than willing to guide you through the process, answer any questions you may have, etc.
With lobe,
Kelly
