Scholarship Highlight

One Gift Sends 700 Students to Medical School

With a single gift Florence Smith touched countless lives.

In 1952  this Norfolk physician’s daughter donated $460,000 from her estate to create a scholarship fund at The Norfolk Foundation for Virginia medical school students. Since then Smith scholarships have sent nearly 700 physicians to medical school – providing more than $2.5 million in scholarships. The endowed fund continues to provide scholarships for more than 15 students a year at Eastern Virginia Medical School, the University of Virginia School of Medicine and Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.

Smith Scholars have become presidents of the American Medical Society (AMA) and other medical societies. Two are foreign missionaries; many teach and conduct research at medical schools. In 2009 Smith Scholar Jason Franasiak of Chesapeake won the AMA Foundation’s Leadership Award for raising funds for Guatemala clinic. More than 100 Smith Scholars treat Hampton Roads patients.

"If it weren’t for that scholarship I might still be milking cows,” said Dr. Donald E. Sly, a 1957 scholarship recipient who grew up in Portsmouth on a dairy farm. He went on to a career as a Norfolk otolaryngologist and Eastern Virginia Medical School professor. Sly died in 2009 after arranging for memorial donations go to the Smith Fund and also for a gift to the foundation from his estate.

"I was very blessed…the scholarship covered everything, and I was able to finish medical school with no debt at all,” Sly recalled in an interview several years ago. Actually Sly finished with one debt – a debt of gratitude to the late Florence Smith, who made his medical education possible. Receiving the Smith scholarship “instilled a sense of philanthropy and gratitude toward the support of education,” Sly once said.

Dr. Donald E. Sly, shown on his first day of medical school in 1957, was inspired by Florence Smith's generosity.

Dr. Jason Franasiak (left) graduated in 2009 from UVA with help from a Smith Scholarship. Here he is shown on a mission trip to Guatemala. While still in school, he won an American Medical Association leadership award.