Pay it Forward Program
Freshmen medical students at Loma Linda University School of Medicine (LLUSM) are invited to consider becoming a Health Ministry Fellow. Fellows will have their tuition and fees paid for 3.5 years. Academic achievement in medical school will be one of the factors considered in the selection process. The Health Ministry Fellowship will begin during the second half of the freshman year. It will continue until graduation, as long as the student continues to progress academically and continues to display the behavior expected of a Fellow.
The tuition and fees are a gift from the Health Ministry Fellows Endowment (HMFE), a California Nonprofit Religious Corporation with its own Tax Exempt Status as a 501(c) (3) public charity or from the Centennial Tuition Endowment of the LLU School of Medicine. The program has been made possible by the personal generosity of Alumni and friends of the School. The donors have great appreciation for those who gave them the opportunity to serve and wish to make it possible for the future graduates to be relieved of the debt burden carried by most medical graduates at the time of graduation.
Purpose of Health Ministry Fellows Endowment
The HMFE is a “Pay-it-Forward” investment in medical students who will accept the responsibility of service through one or more of the specific avenues listed below. We invite you to read the Adventist Review article found at https://www.adventistreview.org/1522-56. This article, a true story from the early years of the School of Medicine, illustrates the basic “Pay-It-Forward’ concept envisioned by those whose donations have made this program possible.
The HMFE will thrive only to the extent that Fellows willingly undertake, as a moral commitment, to further the purpose of the Endowment.
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The Fellow will get post graduate training in a specialty and return as a Faculty Member to teach at LLUSOM, if invited by the chair of the relevant Department. Each year that the Fellow serves the school in this capacity will be considered as repayment of 10% of the moral commitment entailed in the Fellowship award. After 10 years the commitment to “Pay it Forward” will be considered completed.
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The Fellow will serve overseas in hospitals affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church in a developing country on a mission salary. Each year that the Fellow serves in this capacity will be considered as discharging 10% of the moral commitment. After 10 years the repayment of the total “Pay-it-Forward” commitment will be considered completed.
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The Fellow will serve as a Christian physician and community leader in medical practice (when possible in association with an Adventist hospital or clinic). These physicians will undertake to repay their tuition gift by making voluntary, tax-free donations when they are financially able to do so. The moral obligation will be to make these contributions in sufficient amount to pay for 3.5 years of tuition and fees of a future Fellow at the then current tuition rate. The future Fellow who will benefit from that “pay-it-forward” gift will be selected by the Board of the Health Ministry Fellows Endowment in a manner similar to the way in which the inaugural and subsequent Fellows have been chosen. Because the funds of the Health Ministry Fellowships came from the two sources mentioned earlier, the “Pay-it-Forward” financial contribution will be made back to those same two sources.
A. Health Ministry Fellows Endowment (Tax ID #: EIN-83-4492134)
B. School of Medicine Centennial Tuition Endowment – P1612 (Tax ID #: EiN-95-18166009)
Further Information
During November-December of their freshman year, the HMFE will send out invitations to eligible medical students to apply for Fellowship status. The HMFE can be contacted via email at hmfendowment@gmail.com.