Finding funds for summer training programs proves challenging for faculty

The School of Medicine’s summer science programs are filled with success stories of encouraging students to not only go to college but also to proceed to graduate and medical schools. Despite the benefits these programs afford to students, their communities and Stanford, program leaders are often challenged to find the money to keep them going.

For years, Paul Brown, DDS, consulting associate professor of anatomy, ran his Digital Anatomy summer program on NIH grants, but last year, those grants ended. Brown amassed the $80,000 needed for this year’ssummer program on his own. “Funding is a real problem,” said Brown. “I had to raise money from friends and family.”

Funding frustrations are shared by the leaders of other summer programs, including P.J. Utz, MD, associate professor of medicine and a founder of the Stanford Institutes of Medicine Summer Research Program. Two grants that fund SIMR will end in the next 12 months.

“Even sadder,” said Utz, faculty director of SIMR, “is that we had over 1,200 applications this year, and with additional funding we could have matched another 40 students into labs that were eager to take them.”

Changes to the SIMR program may help ease the burden. To date, SIMR students have all received a $1,500 stipend for the summer so that those who need to earn money in the summer can participate. Next year, however, Utz plans to move to a needs-based stipend system, to save the program’s precious funding by paying only those students who require income in order to participate.

The Stanford Medical Youth Science Program also faces financial difficulties. This residential program costs some $250,000 a year to train new students and offer college and career guidance to its 550 alumni. Founder and director Marilyn Winkleby, PhD, professor of medicine, is concerned about the future of the program. “Personally, I don’t think it can be sustained without an endowment or an endowment plus some operational funding,” she said.

“The benefits of these kinds of programs to Stanford and to the local community are great and are of increasing importance as our primary schools are failing to educate a science-capable workforce,” said Winkleby. “With Stanford’s faculty, staff and students and state-of-the-art laboratories and technology, we can broaden the pipeline of talented students who are needed in the science and health professions.”