Turner Scholars Past and Present

The Turner Scholarship, named after the founding dean of the UW medical school, Dr. Edward Turner, is given to selected minority medical students and pays for four years of medical school tuition.

Turner Scholars are chosen based on a combination of academic merit and financial need. Those eligible are minority students who have been accepted to UW medical school and who are from Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana or Idaho. One of the commitments of being a Turner Scholar is to serve as a resource for community outreach activities.

Two recent Turner Scholars are Steven MacLean and Dawit Teklemichael.

MacLean, who earned his undergrate degree in biology from Pomona College in Los Angeles, is from Poulsbo, Wash. He is completing the UW's M.D. degree program and plans to go into pediatrics.

"I really want to work for underprivileged kids," MacLean said.

MacLean has volunteered doing a wellness screening for Native American children at the Daybreak Clinic and has given sports physicals to students at Blaine Elementary.

Teklemichael came to the United States from Ethiopia as a teenager. After attending Nathan Hale High School in Seattle, he worked for several years to support himself and his mother. He later took classes at North Seattle Community College. After graduating in 2000, he volunteered at the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System and then transferred to the UW, where he got a job as a laboratory technician and later as a research assistant.

Teklemichael is completing the M.D. program and is interested in ophthalmology and head and neck surgery.

"The head and neck are interesting and challenging I think," he said. "I think I could do a lot of good, especially in Third World countries where this type of care is not accessible."

Once he completes his internship and residency, Teklemichael hopes to practice in the United States and go to developing countries for two- or three-month periods.

Dr. Traci Hiegel is a past Turner Scholar. She graduated from the School of Medicine in 1996 and has been practicing pediatrics for five years at Cascade Pediatrics in Bellevue, Wash. Hiegel did her undergrad work at the UW, where she majored in psychology. Before she chose to go into medicine, Hiegel knew she wanted to work with kids, so pediatrics seemed a perfect fit.

"I enjoy working with children and their families and watching them grow," Hiegel said.

Hiegel said she is "constantly grateful for the Turner Society" for financing her education.

"It took the financial stress away from going to medical school," she said. "I think about the Turner Society often and I hope I can give back to it."

Dr. Chris McGilmer, who graduated in 1998, is also a past recipient of the Turner Scholarship. McGilmer works in the area of family medicine and sports medicine.

"I chose to go into family medicine because I wanted to do a little bit of everything," McGilmer said. "I wanted to care for of a large range of people and I didn't want to be limited in my scope of practice."

While completing his undergraduate work at Seattle University, McGilmer was active in sports and played college basketball. This is one of the reasons he chose to add sports medicine to his family practice. McGilmer said he has always been fascinated with the skeletal and muscular structure of the human body. This interest also contributed to his gravitating towards sports medicine.

"Given the wide breadth of knowledge required in family medicine, I now also enjoy a focal area of expertise which sports medicine provides," McGilmer said.

When he found out he was a recipient of the Turner Scholarship, McGilmer was excited and surprised and thought they may have made a mistake at first, he said.

"It was quite an honor and inspires me to give back" McGilmer said. "It helped relieve a tremendous financial burden, for which I am forever grateful." It also helped his confidence, public speaking skills, and teaching skills, he said.

For the past year and a half, McGilmer has been with Kaiser Permanente in Southern California. He works in an urgent care setting, where he sees everything from cardiac arrests to compound fractures. He is also the sports medicine doctor for his clinic.

Pediatrician and former Turner Scholar Dr. Tracy Hiegel, in her Issaquah, Wash., office with two-week-old twins Kathryn and Anna Dennis.

Dawit Teklemichael, 31, moved to the United States from famine-ridden Ethiopia when he was 16. Now a second-year medical student, he wants to practice among the Ethiopian immigrant population and in developing nations.

Steven MacLean plans to be a doctor for underprivileged children.