Move into top tier of NIH funded schools – Research philanthropy is vital to this process. It can provide crucial start-up funds for promising projects, boost competitive recruitment packages to talented investigators, outfit state-of-the-art laboratories and reinforce the effort of a mature research team on the threshold of a major discovery. These investments have long-term impact. Your gift can lay a foundation for future growth that will move the school into the top 40 among all medical schools in NIH sponsored research by 2010.

Professorships – Many of our faculty physicians now shoulder increasing patient care demands as the teaching hospital faces the financial pressures of managed care, market competition and federal Medicare cuts. In fact, the time our clinical faculty spend on patient care is nearly double that of some of our peer research-intensive medical schools. Philanthropic support is crucial to our vision to endow teaching professorships and longer-term visiting professorships. Through these positions, we will reward, protect and inspire those who have a passion for communication, the generosity to share themselves with students and the skill to excite others to go beyond the basics.

Student debt – Scholarships are a high priority need for our medical students, who make up the largest class sizes of the state’s medical schools. In just seven years, the average debt carried by a graduate increased dramatically from $55,000 in 1995 to $104,000 in 2002. This year’s tuition and fees hit an all-time high of $20,023 for incoming Virginia students and $35,891 for all out-of-state students. This burden of debt has far-reaching consequences, not only for individual students, but also for the profession of medicine. Increasing financial aid funds for medical students would decrease the financial burden of our students.

Graduate stipends – An incalculable strength comes through attracting a critical mass of highly qualified students. Competition for the brightest and most talented graduate students is stiff. And with the cost of graduate education rising faster than inflation, the School of Medicine’s current $17,000 stipend for the first two years of graduate training is at the bottom of the national scale for many programs. Increasing funding of graduate stipends for master’s and Ph.D. students could be a deciding factor for a student with limited funds but a strong desire to study with our school’s renowned faculty researchers.