Second-year medical student Amma Boakye is the first student in the Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine to receive the the Sherry R. Arnstein Minority Student Scholarship, a national scholarship awarded to only five medical students in the country this year.
On August 22, 2016, Dr. Donald Sefcik, dean of MU-COM and vice president of health professions, and Clinton Whitson, assistant dean of student affairs, proudly presented the check to Boakye.
Boakye is president of the Student National Medical Association and treasurer of the Student Association of the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians. In her first year at MU-COM, Boakye’s classmates gave her the Good Samaritan Award and named her Student Doctor of the Year.
“When it comes down to it, a lot of osteopathic philosophy can be applied to life, and I’m starting to realize that my identity as an osteopath and my identity as a human being are one and the same, inextricably linked,” Boakye said. “How I treat someone as a physician is how I would want to honor someone, stranger or friend, as a person when I am not acting as a physician.”
In Boakye’s experience, there was not a lot of awareness of osteopathy as an option for pursuing a medical degree among minorities.
“A lot of minorities have been historically underrepresented in the field of osteopathic medicine and continue to be underrepresented. I believe receiving this scholarship allows me to advocate for other underrepresented minorities who are on the fence about choosing an osteopathic school over an allopathic one,” Boakye said. “There are opportunities in the making for financial support out there if you want to venture down the osteopathic path, and of course, the rewards in choosing an osteopathic school are beyond measure.”
