We Need You! National Health Service Corps Scholarship

At the White House Health Summit last Thursday, when President Obama was asked about support for the development of nurses in his health reform efforts, President Obama replied saying, "This is a no brainer."

The Recovery Act has allotted $500 million to boost health care workers' training and employment with $300 million to double the number of beneficiaries in the National Health Service Corps (NHSC).

NHSC's mission is to unite communities in need with caring health professionals and to support communities' efforts to build better systems of care. The NHSC provides comprehensive team-based health care that bridges geographic, financial, cultural, and language barriers with a large emphasis on delivering quality health care to all. The NHSC specifically addresses populations and health issues that have the highest racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in treatment success. These include HIV/AIDS, mental health, dental care, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etc.

Through strategies that include forming partnerships with communities, States, and educational institutions, the NHSC hopes to shape the way providers practice and work with the underserved. Of particular interest to health professions students are the opportunities that the NHSC provides to work with the underserved. These opportunities include:

1) Scholarship and Loan Repayment Programs
2) SEARCH (Student/Resident Experiences and Rotations in Community Health) Program

With the influx of money provided by the Recovery Act, about 80 new scholarships will be awarded this year. The NHSC is looking for students interested in careers as primary care physicians (MD or DO in family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics-gynecology, general psychiatry), primary care nurse practitioners, certified nurse-midwives, and general dentists or pediatric dentists. To find out more about the NHSC scholarship, click here.

Thanks Jay for sending out the information!