Wednesday, 8 April 2009

High school students from outer suburbs who aspire to become doctors will have the chance to be given a financial helping hand from a new array of Faculty scholarships established through bequests.

Mary Agnes Horsfall, whose three step-daughters graduated from UWA, bequeathed part of her estate of nearly $450,000 to the Medical School and five scholarships will be established in her memory.

Mrs Ada Nellie Moss also bequeathed a sum of money to the Medical School to provide a scholarship in memory of her late husband, Dr Matthew Kasner Moss, who was an anaesthetist.

Thanks to the Horsfall bequest, three Mary Horsfall Outer Metropolitan Scholarships will been established in perpetuity for academically able students entering medicine via the Outer Metropolitan Program. Likewise, the Matthew Kasner Moss Outer Metropolitan Scholarship has been established in perpetuity and will be awarded for the first time this year.

The OMP is part of the Aspire program, developed to raise the aspirations of students in communities which are under-represented in higher education in WA.

The OMP offers support, in partnership with identified schools, in a bid to increase enrolment numbers in medicine and dentistry at UWA. The recipients will be supported for the duration of their course with an annual scholarship valued at $5,000.

The four scholarships will be introduced in a staggered fashion with the aim of having a new one available every year. The Medical School is eager to establish more of these Outer Metropolitan Scholarships to support at least one high school student entering medicine every year.

There will also be two Mary Horsfall Travel Scholarships which will allow students to travel to or from Asia on exchange programs. They also have been established in perpetuity and the first will be awarded next year. The intent is to encourage student exchange between universities, such as the Nanjing University Medical School, with which the Faculty has formed strong ties.

The scholarships, worth $3000 each, will be available for students at UWA and Asian universities.

Ms Cheryl Mariner, Associate Director of the Office of Development, said many people were inspired to follow in the footsteps of the late Sir John Winthrop Hackett, whose generous bequest enabled the establishment of the University, providing beautiful limestone buildings and funding the Hackett Scholarships.

The Medical School is a major recipient of bequests, largely because of its high profile in the community.

“Because of the groundbreaking research conducted at UWA, many gifts are earmarked for medical research into particular illnesses,” Ms Mariner said. About half the bequest gift donors are not UWA graduates but are people who value education and understand its importance.

“Gifts are always used as stipulated in the will and obviously we prefer to speak to people about that in case they put something in their will that is totally undoable, like finding a cure for the common cold,” Ms Mariner said.

“We want to make sure their wishes can be carried out. There is nothing worse than having gifts that you cannot use and donors would not want that either.”

The University welcomed the opportunity to thank intended bequest donors in person, she said.

Anyone interested in making a gift to UWA in their will can contact Ms Mariner on 6488 1688.

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