Giving

Founders' Scholarships

Scholarships are awarded annually to osteopathic medical students at Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine in Las Cruces, NM, A.T. Still University-SOMA in Mesa, AZ and Midwestern University-AZCOM in Glendale, AZ. The awards are given in the names of the Tucson General Hospital Founders whose forward thinking allowed them to overcome such dilemmas as exclusion from staff privileges at existing hospitals and the inability to rent office space from allopathic physicians. In 1949, their solution was to incorporate a 15 bed osteopathic hospital. Over the next 30 years, it grew into a 277 bed facility and highly respected educational hub for osteopathic interns and residents. Through the Founders' Scholarships, it is TOMF's intent to provide some relief from the financial burdens of medical school as well as encourage this same innovation and leadership from the next generation of DOs as they face new challenges in modern medicine.

The Founders' Awards were originally established in 1987 as a scholarship program to assist osteopathic medical students with the financial burden of medical school tuition and pay tribute to the five founding osteopathic physicians of Tucson General Hospital. The Founders' Awards eventually evolved into a loan program which forgave the loans of graduates who returned to southern Arizona to practice for at least five years. Over the course of its 20 year history, the program benefited a total of 58 students with over one million dollars collectively.

Click here to learn more about the history of Tucson Osteopathic Medical Foundation, Tucson General Hospital, its Founders and medicine in southern Arizona.