Marshall’s medical school beginning this semester will offer two new four-year scholarships per year to qualifying student veterans pursuing a career in medicine.

The scholarships are offered through the Veterans Healing Veterans Medical Access and Scholarship Program (VHVMASP), which was created following passage of the Veterans Affairs Mission Act of 2018 to help veterans pay for medical school.

Through the program, the Joan C. Ed- wards School of Medicine was chosen as one of only nine medical schools across the country to offer the new scholarships.

The scholarships include a stipend and cover costs for tuition, fees, equipment, books and two rotations at a Veterans Affairs (VA) facility during the student’s senior year.

To be eligible for the scholarship, ap- plicants must have completed military service no longer than ten years ago and may not receive GI Bill or Vocational Re- habilitation funding for the duration of the scholarship.

While receiving benefits of the

scholarship, students must agree to com- plete residency training and become board-eligible in a specialty applicable to theVA.

Recipients also must agree to work as full-time clinical providers at a VA facility for at least four years upon

completing their training.
Bobby Miller, vice dean of medical edu-

cation at Marshall, said medical school administrators constantly are working to identify ways to recruit students from diverse backgrounds and who may have unique life experiences.

“This scholarship provides us the oppor- tunity to recognize individuals who have served our country while continuing to demonstrate our strong ties to the VA, upon which our medical school was founded,” Miller said.

First-year medical student Matthew Werhoff Jr. is the first student at Marshall to be awarded the scholarship.

Werhoff is from Martinsburg and joined the United States Army after graduating high school in 2011, serving until 2019 as a member of the Military Police Corps.

Werhoff earned a bachelor’s degree of science studying exercise physiology at WVU in Morgantown.

The other medical schools chosen to offer the new scholarships through the VHVMASP are: Texas A&M College of Med- icine, University of South Carolina College of Medicine, Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University, Quillen Col- lege of Medicine at East Tennessee State University, Howard University School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, Drew University of Medicine and Science and Morehouse School of Medicine.

Douglas Harding can be contacted at [email protected].