Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Bursaries

On behalf of UCL Medical School, I would like to send our sincere thanks to you and your team, plus of course Members of the Court, for the extremely generous and kind gift to our medical students who would otherwise struggle financially through their course.

This has been a year like no other, and medical students have been impacted emotionally and practically but have remained stoic, resilient and determined to help patients and others in their community. As the EGA Scholarships have for the first time been awarded to male as well as female students, you will see from the students’ letters what fantastic support this has been to them. We were delighted to be able to make these awards this year regardless of gender, knowing what an impact they would have on these students’ lives. These new Scholarships really could not have come at a better time, so thank you so much again for your kind work in making them relevant for today’s students.

We look forward to seeing you, with the Scholars, in better days when our campus is open and we can meet
again.

I just wanted to say a massive thank you for your kind donation this term. It is going to help me immensely.

I am a 26 year old graduate student now in my 4th year. I graduated with a 1st class honours degree in Physiology at the University of Liverpool in 2016. I was the first in my immediate family to go onto further education.

To briefly touch on my background, at the age of 11 I was adopted with my younger brother and had a very stable loving home. I achieved a 1st BSc Physiology (Hons) from the University of Liverpool before spending some time out working as a 1:1 teaching assistant and HCA in healthcare to consider my next steps.

My family were incredibly supportive of my decision to do graduate medicine after my application was unsuccessful as an undergraduate and had planned to help me financially to afford medical school; this is because as a graduate you have to fund your studies for a second undergraduate degree.

Unfortunately, my adopted father moved to Kazakhstan out of the blue and has since stopped being actively involved. As a result, my mother has had to take over all financial responsibility for our home, and I used all my savings to fund last year studies. This has been demanding but we’ve managed and had a plan, and then COVID-19 hit.

The money you donated has paid for my second instalment for tuition fees this year and has alleviated so much pressure and given me time to work things out. So, for that, I cannot express how grateful I am to you for your donation and allowing me to continue with my studies.

I know there any many more students who are like me, who come into financial difficulty throughout their studies. Having individuals like yourselves who kindly donate money to help, is soincredibly humbling and generous. I can’t express the gratitude I have.

As a recipient of the 2020/21 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Bursary, I wanted to thank you for granting me this award.

I am now in my final year of studying medicine at UCL, on track to graduate in July 2021. After finishing my studies and training, I hope to practice in gastroenterology. I have had a passion for medicine for much of my life, and whilst the journey has been somewhat arduous, it has also been the most enriching and rewarding experiences of my life. Having the opportunity to study in UCL, London’s Global University, broadening cultural horizons in ways I never would have been able to before attending, as well as gaining leading education and clinical experience in hospitals that are at the cutting edge of modern medicine, has been invaluable.

My mother was recently made redundant, and the pandemic that is still ongoing has prevented her from finding substantial work. As such, she has not been able to contribute at all to my studies this year, and this bursary alleviates the huge financial and psychological strain this has caused, allowing me to once again focus on the most important aspect of university: learning.

I truly do not know what I would have done without your support and generosity. I hope that one day I will also be able to help a student achieve their goals, like you’ve helped me. Continuing my studies wouldn’t be possible without the generous support from bursary donors like yourself. Thank you for making this possible.

I am writing to express my gratitude for this opportunity. It is coming to the end of what has been a very difficult year for most, including myself. This award feels like a weight being lifted off my shoulders.

I am in my penultimate year of studying medicine and I have found it very challenging thus far, to say the least. Getting into UCLMS 6 years ago felt like overcoming a massive hurdle. Because no one from my school had ever been accepted into medical school, and I didn’t know anyone who had become a doctor, I often felt like I was being overambitious in wanting to study medicine. The journey so far has not been without hurdles.

I interrupted my studies last year due to health reasons that were only worsened by worry and stress over finances. Having taken a year out already, I’m keen to complete the rest of the course without further interruption. This bursary helps to alleviate a lot of the anxiety and uncertainty regarding my finances this year. I have been working part-time to help make up the deficit and I am extremely relieved that I will no longer need to do this. I will be able to spend this freed up time studying and taking better care of my health.

I cannot thank you enough.

I am writing to you to offer my sincere and heartfelt gratitude for Elizabeth Garret Anderson Scholarship I have received from UCL medical school. I am incredibly appreciative, and this will make my journey to becoming a doctor (in its final strides) much easier.

I am a 5th year UCL medical student who has transferred from Bristol after my father’s sudden death and my mum’s battle with metastatic cancer. I have a previous degree in Neuroscience and psychology and have a real passion for surgery, and possibly O&G medicine as a speciality. In my spare time, I am also very passionate about poetry and have written and performed several times,
and am in the process of getting my work published. I am very enthusiastic about the next few years of my studies and look forward to learning about the various specialities as well as core medicine in much more depth.

This bursary will help me to focus on achieving my academic priorities rather than worrying about how to afford travel into university, as I live in Surrey with my mum to take care of her, while I commute into university.

Thank you again for your generous support.

I’m just finishing the first term of my 5th year at UCL Medical School. I have just started my obstetrics rotation and I can say confidently that it is my favourite specialty yet. I have also received the great news that I have earned a commendation for an abstract and poster that I submitted to the British HIV Association.

It’s been a long road to study medicine, and it’s only as I write this now that I look back properly on just how far I’ve come in that time! I am loving my time here, particularly now that I am in my clinical years and can spend more time with patients. I’ve been fortunate enough to make some good friends and be involved in various clubs and societies at UCL; but I find myself still driven by
the same passion that led to me to apply to study medicine in the first place. I never thought that anyone from my school could go on to become a doctor and I feel very lucky to be here.

Ever since coming to London, funding myself has been difficult. Until now, student finance and my tutoring has enabled me to continue my studies. However, this year our funding has been cut significantly and I cannot find enough hours each week to earn the money I need to pay for my rent and food. This scholarship will mean that I can continue to live and study in London; doing what I love.

I never imagined that I could receive such help, and I am enormously grateful for your
generosity. Thank you.

I’m writing to express my sincere gratitude at being granted this scholarship and the huge relief it is to be able to focus on my studies and concentrate on becoming the best future doctor I can be.

My family home is in Manchester and I relied on the generosity of a similar bursary scheme to be able to continue my studies after my dad lost his job whilst at school. I am the first in my family to study medicine and I think much of my motivation and drive come from recognising the efforts of my parents and how lucky I am to be studying medicine at a place like UCL. I’m very interested in medical education and the potential of technology to improve the way medicine is practised. I’m yet to decide on a career but I thoroughly enjoyed my anaesthetics placement and I like the idea of being a generalist and seeing lots of different presentations for example in A&E.

This year the amount I received from NHS bursaries meant I didn’t even have enough to cover my rent. This was problematic since we don’t have a sufficiently long summer for me to work and support myself (as I have been doing in the summers of year 1-3). At the start of the year I was very anxious about how I would fit in part-time work with my studies.

Thanks to this bursary I can afford my rent and transport costs without having to compromise my studies. I really am grateful. Thanks to this bursary I can afford my rent and transport costs without having to compromise my studies. I really am grateful.

I am writing this letter to express my gratitude to you for your generous donation towards my medical school expenses.

I come from a non-medical background and I am the first person in my family to study medicine. The last four years have been an amazing experience. Although there have been some bumps along the road, I wouldn’t trade my time here for anything. I find it hard to believe that I have less than two years left but I am looking forward to the rest of medical school and you will play a part in that.

This bursary will help me get through the coming year and will supplement my everyday expenses, especially because I am receiving less student financial support than I did in years 1-4. Your donation will now enable me to completely focus on my studies as you have lifted off a very big burden off my shoulders.

I will be forever grateful for your compassion and kind-heartedness. Thank you so much.

I am writing today to express my deepest thanks for being awarded the Elizabeth Garret Anderson Scholarship. I am so honoured to receive this scholarship and can’t begin to tell you how much this means to me. Without this award, I would not be able to continue with my studies and progress to becoming a UCL doctor.

I chose to study medicine through an unconventional route having first studied Biomedical Sciences for my BSc. It was here during my time in second year working in a hospital for a physiology studentship, that I realised my ambition to help others. Observing the doctors on the labour ward which our academic department was closely involved with for collecting specimens, I knew then that I wanted to be with the patients through it all rather than just in the lab or on the academic side. It was not such an easy decision and I spent much time deliberating whether it was even possible, as graduate students are not offered any tuition funding, and a £9,250 tuition fee each year for five years is a big financial commitment. Especially coming from a working-class background, and not having a familial support system that many of my colleagues are blessed with. However, I wanted this so much, and I chose to pursue my dream and have since funded myself independently through a mixture of paid work (which has put me under a high stress burden alongside the huge workload of medical school) and applying to bursaries such as this one. Since starting medical school, I have had resounding reassurance that I know I made the right decision; I love this degree, and I feel so lucky to be working towards a career where I can help others and make a difference, but also know that I enjoy what I am doing.

Having not come into medical school through the conventional route, but applying as a graduate student who realised my ambition to be a Doctor during my first degree, I often feel that the odds have been stacked against me to find ways to fund my degree whilst also trying to excel with medical studies. This is why this award is so important for me, as it partly relieves some of the burden to do paid work throughout my studies, and I can focus more on what really matters. This not only allows me to spend more time studying medicine, which is what I really want to do, but this financial relief will also provide me with a lesser burden of stress, which has affected me
greatly in the past both physically and mentally.

Again, I am so grateful for this opportunity and would like to extend my sincere thanks once again.

I am writing to thank you for your generous Elizabeth Garret Anderson Scholarship. I was delighted and grateful to hear that I was selected by UCL Medical School Student Support as the recipient of your bursary this year.

I am currently in Year 6 of the MBBS programme. I plan to pursue a career in medicine upon graduating in 2021. Thanks to you, I am one step closer to that goal and fulfilling my academic and scholastic potential.

By awarding me the Elizabeth Garret Anderson Scholarship, you have eased my financial burden thus allowing me to focus and put more effort into my learning which will hopefully translate into becoming a well-rounded and proficient clinician in the future. Your generosity has inspired me to help others and give back to the community.

I hope one day I will be able to help students achieve their goals just as you have helped me.

After 7 years at UCL, I am a final year medical student and it hasn’t been an easy road to get to where I am. I grew up in Wigan, Lancashire and I am the first of my family to go to university. As cliché as it sounds, as a young child, I wanted to be a doctor. Obviously, at 8 years old, I didn’t know what that really entailed, all I knew from my mum was that I would have to go to school for a really long time… I didn’t mind the thought of this, school was my safe and happy place. Filled with friends and books where anything was possible if you just worked hard. My father is a builder whose dream was to study architecture and my mother is a beautician who wanted to be a nurse. Both were hindered by the fact their families just didn’t have enough money for them to leave home and study. Regardless, they never discouraged me from my dream, even though they knew it would be difficult to achieve.

When I started to apply for universities money was something I had to take into account and I almost didn’t apply. My father was unwell and couldn’t work much. My mother had to cut back her working hours to part-time so she could care for my grandmother with Alzheimer’s, in addition to looking after her two small grandchildren and my younger sister. So, I chose to work multiple jobs to pay their bills- which I still do. However, one evening I remember a conversation with my mum during which I cried thinking that it would just not be feasible to go away to university. It was then that she told me that she had sold our house and that no matter what happened she would make sure that I would go to university and become a doctor. So, in 2014 I moved to UCL and although my time has not been easy; with multiple exam retakes, a long struggle with mental illness and many monetary stresses, I have persisted and now I am only a few months away from graduating as a UCL doctor.

This sum of money will change my life. In the last two years, I have really struggled. I had to live as a student residence adviser in UCL halls in order to continue to study medicine because I couldn’t afford housing or food. The money you have so kindly gifted will mean that I can live somewhere of my choice without the stress of being on call overnight during exam season. It will also mean I can do things in my spare time that I love; like playing football, going to the gym and cooking my own food. I am sorry this letter is so long and probably contains far too much information. But I just wanted to let you know how much this means to me. Hopefully one day I can be in a position to provide a scholarship like this as you have to me.

This means more than you will ever know and I thank you so much.