New Scholarship to Increase Access for Most Promising Medical Students

Ann Bedell Hunt’s generous blended gift of $1.1 million to establish the Bedell Family Endowed Medical Scholarship at UC San Diego School of Medicine will help ensure that finances do not prevent promising and deserving medical students from choosing UC San Diego School of Medicine.

“I am so pleased … to have the opportunity to open more doors for aspiring doctors, no matter their backgrounds, who might not otherwise get the opportunity to attend medical school,” Hunt said.

Cost is a well-documented hurdle to becoming a doctor, particularly among groups that are underrepresented in medicine. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, approximately 6% of practicing physicians in the United States are Hispanic, 5% are Black, and 0.3% are Alaska Native or American Indian.

UC San Diego School of Medicine has worked to reduce health disparities and diversify the student community and faculty through holistic admissions and diversifying admissions and hiring committees.

“Diversity in health care starts in medical school,” says Kama Guluma, MD, associate dean for admissions and student affairs. “Diversity of thought, ideas and lived experience significantly enriches the academic experience and improves the depth and breadth of the experience for all students. Diversity in health care is about understanding the mindset and needs of a patient within a larger context of culture, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, and socioeconomic realities.”

And thanks to planned gifts like Hunt’s, diverse change makers will continue to have access to leading-edge medical education, today and for generations to come.

To find out more about establishing an endowed scholarship like Ann Bedell Hunt’s, please contact the Office of Gift Planning at (858) 534-2249 or giftplanning@ucsd.edu.