Aiming to sustain the future of medicine via education, local chapters of the Texas Medical Association Alliance now provide more than $250,000 a year to fund medical student and nursing scholarships statewide.
Among the TMA Alliance’s philanthropy initiatives, 12 local alliances, some in tandem with county medical societies, maintain scholarship programs that date as far back as the 1950s and 1960s.
Empowering this tradition is the TMA Foundation, which annually invites local alliances to apply for medical and nursing student scholarships that augment their own efforts and empower more students toward health care careers.
The scholarships illustrate a commitment to growing the physician and nursing workforce throughout the state, in some cases keeping health care professionals serving the counties by providing them educational support.
Seven figures in Smith County
The Smith County Medical Society Alliance has given more than $1.3 million scholarships on its own, and currently provides five annual scholarships, including:
- The Smith County Medical Society Alliance Endowed Scholarship and SCMSA Presidential Scholarship at Tyler Junior College;
- The Smith County Medical Society Alliance Endowed Presidential Nursing Scholarship and SCMSA Masters Nursing Fellowship at The University of Texas at Tyler; and
- The Smith County Medical Society Alliance Medical Student Scholarship at The University of Texas at Tyler School of Medicine.
The TMA Foundation also provided funding for an additional $5,000 medical school scholarship for the 2025-26 academic year.
“Tyler is a relatively big medical community, with two big health systems here,” said Lisa Allen, DO, current president of the Smith County Medical Society Alliance and Smith County Medical Society president from 2022 through 2023. “Having the nursing schools has been a benefit to the community … and part of the reason of having the [University of Texas] medical school was also to help the community, keeping physicians in the area.”
Though four of the five scholarships are now endowed by the pair of schools involved, and the responsibility for selecting recipients rests solely with those schools, the scholarships were initially funded by a book fair the alliance launched 52 years ago. The alliance also extended the program by selling the building where the book fair was headquartered three years ago.
Funding Wichita Falls students
Another scholarship program from the Wichita County Medical Alliance distributes five or six scholarships annually (each ranging from $1,500 to $2,500) to students preparing for careers as physicians, nurses, and health care professionals. Its most recently approved $2,500 scholarship is supported through TMA Foundation funding.
“We see the fruits of the investment in the people who receive the scholarships,” said Sherry Whitley, president of the Wichita County Medical Alliance. “Some stay around, some attend our functions, we get to know them, and relationships are formed.”
Students applying must attend a Texas school and hail from either Wichita County or one of four neighboring counties; many past recipients attended or still attend Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls. The alliance coordinates with Midwestern officials to help find candidates.
“I will definitely stay in Texas. At the very least, if residency takes me away for a little bit, I will come back to Texas,” said Zaniya Medlin, a Mineral Wells native who learned about the scholarship opportunity from a physician at her church. Ms. Medlin graduated from Midwestern State this spring and is readying to start medical school next semester at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.
Helping nurses achieve degrees
The Dallas County Medical Society Alliance Foundation, through its Edith Cavell Nursing Scholarship, has distributed more than $750,000 to students since 1954. The scholarship has evolved, in part through attracting substantial donations, to now support students pursuing baccalaureate nursing degrees through accredited programs in Dallas County. It has grown to provide up to 12 two-year scholarships annually, providing each recipient $5,000 a year.
The alliance arranges for mentors to work with students and make sure they’re earning good grades as they progress through the program, says Elizabeth Gunby, past president of the Dallas County Medical Society Alliance Foundation, once a registered nurse herself.
“We don’t just send a check to the school,” she said.
Those three well-established programs are joined by other local alliances building their own philanthropic stories:
- Bell County Medical Alliance has awarded more than $100,000 to Bell County students pursuing health care-related fields since 1989.
- Bexar County Medical Society Alliance awards three annual scholarships for medicine or allied health professions.
- Cameron-Willacy County Medical Alliance has been providing scholarships to county residents since 1965, with its nursing scholarship awarding more than $138,000 since 1991.
- Travis County Medical Alliance awards scholarships through TMA Foundation.
- Midland County Medical Society Alliance once maintained a nursing scholarship tied to Midland College and now coordinates with the Midland County Medical Society on three $5,000 medical student scholarships annually.
- Nueces County Medical Society Alliance provides two annual $1,500 scholarships for Del Mar College students.
Help along the way
Local alliances that have their own medical student scholarship program may apply annually for up to two matching scholarships (up to $5,000 each) from the TMA Foundation. Support for these scholarships is made possible by two trusts established by Dr. and Mrs. Roberto Bayardo, which are part of the TMA Foundation’s Family of Funds.
“The Bayardo trust funds are designed to help local county societies and alliances make a greater impact than they would otherwise,” said Lisa Stark Walsh, executive director of the TMA Foundation. This year the Bexar, Smith, and Wichita alliances were approved for matching medical student scholarships totaling $10,500, and the Travis County Medical Society Alliance was approved for $20,100 for nursing scholarships.
In addition to these alliance scholarships, last month the foundation – drawing from an endowment and three Bayardo scholarship trust funds – approved nearly $40,000 more in medical student scholarships to Lubbock, Midland, Smith, and Travis county medical societies.
Donate to the TMA Foundation to support scholarships and other programs or learn more about including TMA Foundation as part of your lasting legacy.
Phil West
Associate Editor
(512) 370-1394
phil.west[at]texmed[dot]org
Phil West is a writer and editor whose publications include the Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, Austin American-Statesman, and San Antonio Express-News. He earned a BA in journalism from the University of Washington and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin’s James A. Michener Center for Writers. He lives in Austin with his wife, children, and a trio of free-spirited dogs.