For more information, contact: Scott Clark Media and Public Relations 254-724-9724 or 254-724-3047 sdclark@swmail.sw.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 17, 2008

Medical students receive Scott & White scholarships

Left to right: Ravi Kumar (third year student), Matthew Brown (fourth year), David Pham (fourth year), Professor of Internal Medicine Dr. John Starr, Evan Hardegree (third year), Connie So (fourth year), Vice Dean and Chief Academic Officer Dr. Donald Wesson.

TEMPLE, Texas – Scott & White today awarded $2,000 scholarships to a select group of third and fourth year medical students at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine. The two-year scholarships are based in part on high academic achievement and a commitment to community service. Each year two third year medical students are selected to receive the two-year scholarship for the remainder of their clinical training.

New scholarship recipients for 2008 are:

Evan Hardegree is a third year medical student from Abilene, where he graduated from Abilene Christian University. In addition to studying medicine, Hardegree has been involved in STAT, Stand Tall Against Tobacco, an education program for seventh grade students in Bryan/College Station, as well as both the Surgery/Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine Interest Groups. Last summer Hardegree worked on a research project in the of cardiothoracic surgery department at Scott & White, evaluating patients who underwent minimally invasive radioablation surgery to correct cardiac arrhythmias.  He also worked on research comparing results from two different types of sternal closure techniques for open heart surgery.

Ravi Kumar is a third year student from California and Illinois. Kumar graduated cum laude from Texas A&M at Galveston with a degree in marine biology.  After college, Kumar worked full time studying the regeneration of limbs in salamanders at the University of California, Irvine.  He joined the Peace Corps in 2000 and served two years in a rural village in Panama as an environmental and community health volunteer, followed by work as a ranger for the National Park Service in Washington, D.C. Kumar has served in medical school as the Texas Medical Association first-year medical student representative, TMA chapter president, student lecturer for gross anatomy, and spent the last year studying neural cell niches.

Fourth year students Connie So, David Pham and Matthew Brown received their second scholarships. Brown postponed his final year of medical school last year while doing research for the National Institutes of Health, and returned to complete his fourth year.

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