More than $1 million in scholarships awarded to New Brunswick medical students

Scholarships worth more than $1 million have been awarded to 128 medical students from the New Brunswick Medical Education Foundation.

The foundation held a ceremony Thursday evening in Saint John to honour recipients. That included handing out $500,000 in scholarships to 63 students thanks to new funding from the New Brunswick Department of Health Scholarship. The provincial government has committed $2.5 million over five years for the scholarship.

Another 65 students earned support from 42 other scholarship funds awarded by the foundation.

“We are committed to helping medical students from New Brunswick achieve their goals so they can play a role in providing New Brunswickers the care they need,” said Sherry Wilson, minister responsible for addictions and mental health services. “We are pleased to play a major role in handing out tuition scholarships to medical students from the province.”

Wilson attended on behalf of Health Minister Bruce Fitch.

The New Brunswick Medical Education Foundation is Canada’s only private, not-for-profit foundation dedicated to recruiting and retaining future physicians. Prior to this year, it had awarded more than 400 bursaries to more than 200 students.

“The New Brunswick Medical Education Foundation is playing a vital role in the province’s physician recruitment strategy,” said Alyssa Long, the foundation’s executive director. “Our return-to-service scholarships serve to support students from the province who will one day practise here in New Brunswick.”

The scholarship recipients, who have signed one-year return-to-service agreements, come from 40 communities across the province.

“I would be honoured and humbled to practise medicine in New Brunswick, my home,” said Devyani Ambwani, a scholarship recipient attending Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick. “My roots are in this province, and I would cherish the opportunity to serve the community that shaped me into the person I am today.”

“I want to be a part of the solution that builds a better health-care system to provide the best care possible for our population,” said Angela Laevski, a scholarship recipient from the Centre de formation Médicale du Nouveau-Brunswick. “As many cities in New Brunswick are growing fast, it is important that the medical students stay or come back after residency to help the people of New Brunswick obtain family physicians.”