As a faculty member in both the Rollins School of Public Health and Emory School of Medicine, John McGowan recognizes the financial pressures that dual degree students face. To help defray the cost of education for those students, McGowan and his wife, Linda Kay, have established the John E. and Doris W. McGowan Scholarship. Named for his late parents, the scholarship provides tuition support for a student earning an MD/MPH degree.
Lindsay Boole, who holds a BS degree in biomedical engineering and has worked in other countries as a clinic volunteer, became the first McGowan Scholar this fall.
“The average student debt for four years of medical school is huge, and the MD/MPH program requires another year of study,” says McGowan, who directs the MD/MPH program. “Not only are students adding an extra year to study public health, but they also are making an additional financial commitment.”
The scholarship reflects McGowan’s family history. His father practiced at Brooklyn State Hospital on Long Island, where he helped pioneer the field of child psychiatry. His mother was a social worker at the same hospital. Her father was a physician who co-founded the state hospital system in New York.
Now retired, McGowan’s wife, Linda Kay, directed special projects in the CDC director’s office and served as vice president for programs with the CDC Foundation. Their daughter, Angie McGowan 98MPH, is a senior program officer with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and past president of the RSPH Alumni Board. All share a commitment to MD/MPH students.
“Word has gotten around that we have a strong MD/MPH program, and students are looking at Emory specifically because of that,” says McGowan. “It has become a valuable recruiting tool for the medical school. We didn’t build the program. The students did.”
Pictured above left: Linda Kay and John McGowan Jr. Pictured above right: Doris and John McGowan Sr.
October 2009
