Page 5 - Ochsner Magazine - Issue 3

A DREAM FULFILLED—AND PAID FORWARD
As a teenager in Peru, Perla Sevillano Gil (left) traveled with her father, an eye surgeon, to remote villages to give free eye exams to children and provide other care. She ultimately studied medicine herself in Lima, specializing in anesthesi- ology. But when she applied to several U.S. medical schools for a residency, she found the doors shut. In the early 1950s, most schools simply were not interest- ed in admitting a young Hispanic woman.
“Dr. Dean H. Echols, who was in charge of graduate medical education here, tried to help,” says Brian Berrigan, a Director of Development at Ochsner. Through Echols’ efforts, Perla was awarded an Ochsner fellowship and joined the health system in 1952,
embarking on a long and successful medical career.
Now, Perla’s husband has established a generous endowment in honor of his late wife, the Perla Sevil-
lano Gil, MD, Hispanic Medical Students Education Fund, to provide stipends to students who have long been underrepresented in medicine.
“How awesome is this?” says William W. Pinsky, MD, Executive Vice President and Chief Academic Officer for Ochsner Health System. “A young lady seizes an opportunity, and not only turns it into a productive career, but is now able to help others through her legacy.”
educational partnership,” Dr. Pinsky says. “What I underestimated was the additional impact on the students and faculty here of the transnational nature of this partnership.”
More than 200 Ochsner faculty members hold teaching credentials
at Queensland, and enrollment in the UQ–Ochsner Clinical School program is now at 320 students. “Having a med- ical school allows us to know who the stars are, so we can recruit them into our residency program and eventually on to our staff,” Dr. Pinsky says.
Meanwhile, Ochsner has opened a
23,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art Center for Academic Excellence on the OMC – Jefferson Highway North Cam- pus. It includes classrooms, a testing center and a research center that allow physicians to bring innovative medical research directly to their patients.
Students who complete medical training or residency at Ochsner are members of the Ochsner family for life. “Once Ochsner, always Ochsner—and the spirit never leaves our blood,” says Devinder Bhatia, MD, an Ochsner alumnus and surgeon.
The Ochsner Alumni Associa-
tion regularly holds philanthropic and stewardship events to help keep alumni connected to Ochsner, and to each other. “Alumni are drawn to the hospital’s history and the legacy
of Alton Ochsner,” says Helen Zito, Director of Alumni Affairs. “We have a brick circle where alumni can leave
their legacy, and the bricks are around a statue of Dr. Ochsner.”
Dr. Ochsner and his co-founders believed the best way to retain the area’s brightest medical minds was to train them right here in Louisiana. And the UQ–Ochsner Clinical School is an innovative extension of that vision.
Alumni who wish to purchase a brick for the alumni brick circle can contact Helen Zito at 504-842-7230 or helen.zito@ochsner.org.
TO LEARN MORE
To learn more or to make a gift to the Center for Academic Excellence, contact Marjory Harper at 504-842-7114 or mharper@ochsner.org.
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