A Letter

Dear UCSF School of Medicine Alumni:

A Generation. That’s how long it has been since I graduated from the halls of medicine. Now it is time to help the next generation. So it is with great pride in my father and his contributions to his community, specifically the Latino community, that I am establishing the Faustino Bernadett, MD, Sr. scholarship at UCSF. At this time I have contributed $75,000 and will match an additional $25,000 contributed by others if given by June 30, 2005. I invite you to contribute to this scholarship fund because of what is stands for, what he represented, and how his memory could influence another generation of dedicated physicians. He was assisted by a scholarship to attend the University of Michigan; without it he may never have become a physician. The Regents’ Scholarship offered me was the deciding factor in my selection of UCSF. Scholarships make a real difference in students’ lives.

Most of us have get met and conquered our midlife crises. It is time to start giving back in a way that inspires and helps the next generation take steps into the ever increasingly complex medical world in which we live. The next generation faces an aging population, including a tremendous number of Latinos and a diverse population that we only glimpsed 25 years ago. The next generation of physicians will care for us in our golden years.

The cost of a solid medical education is higher now than ever before. I am proud of my education at UCSF and want other students to have the opportunities afforded to me there. Specifically, this scholarship is aimed at assisting Spanish-speaking medical students whose numbers are still too few in medical schools across the nation.

Inspiring Others. My greatest inspiration was my father. His parents were from Chihuahua, Mexico. They immigrated to Michigan to pursue a better life. There, my father was born. He grew up to live a life in the service of others. He moved to Chico, California, where he was the only Spanish speaking family doctor in town. He was as dedicated to his community as was to his family of 7 children. That meant that his practice was always busy and that sometimes he was paid with tamales, chili, or chickens. We learned early in life that those special gifts often held greater value than could be measured monetarily. His commitment to the Mexican American community in Chico was no less than his commitment to the International community when he left his young family for 6 months to volunteer in Vietnam. There he provided medical care for the Montagnard people caught in the crossfire between the North and South Vietnamese and American soldiers. These memories are especially poignant to me because I was left as the young “man of the house” at age 12. I remember the responsibility of filling his large shoes.

When he returned, he continued to serve his community locally and the international community at large. For 14 years he flew to a small village, Noragauchi in Mexico for two weeks each year. Tarahumara would come from many miles and wait in long lines, sometimes for days, to see my Dad. At age fourteen I traveled with my dad and had my first surgical experience removing a large nail from the foot of a Tarahumara. Previously the patient was unable to walk. Now the patient was eternally grateful and I was hooked on medicine. For many it was the only time they saw a doctor each year. He did this on his own, without hoopla and non-profit organization sponsorships. He was not without a sense of humor and humility. His trips ended after his plane crashed. Nobody was injured seriously, but a few suffered lacerations from broken bottles of beer being transported for the local nuns.

My father was also a dedicated teacher. He served as a preceptor to Family Medicine residents and students at UC David for many years. In order to spend more time with his family and accommodate his busy practice, he flew his small plane to teach. It was on a stormy night returning home that his plane crashed and his life here ended. The Family Medicine medical library at UCD was dedicated to his memory. He touched a great many lives and inspired many family doctors and others in his short lifetime.

Now I have the opportunity, a generation after graduating from UCSF, to continue to honor his commitment to family and to local and international communities. It is my hope that the scholarship will assist and inspire Spanish-speaking medical students to someday see their families and communities as my father saw his – with love, commitment, and a never-ending sense of curiosity, humility and fulfillment that came from appreciating the joy of everyday life. This was his legacy.

I remember when I started at UCSF a generation ago. I was determined to make a difference. We have all made a difference in the generation we have served. We have spent countless hours with patients that needed us. We have been there at the beginning and at the end of life. We have invented medical devices to further the advance of medicine and developed and performed operations and procedures numbering in the thousands, if not tens of thousands among us. We have become leaders in our communities and in our country. We have saved lies and we have lived lives. Now it is our time to help the next generation do the same.

Please join me in contributing to this scholarship fund in the name of Faustino Bernadett, MD, Sr., to encourage and assist financially disadvantaged medical students. I am proud to help support the next generation of fine physicians. I pledge to spend time with recipients of this scholarship initially and in years to come so that they may participate in my father’s legacy of commitment to family, community, and medicine.

Siempre,

Faustino “Tino” Bernadett
Class of 1980

P.S. Please see the enclosed donation form and return your envelope for your convenience. UCSF also has a secure web site that you can go to: https://advancement.ucsf.edu/makeAgift . You will see “Please designate my gift to:” select “School of Medicine”. To ensure that the gift goes to this fund, go to: “Please let us know if you would like to designate your gift further. For example, if this gift is made in honor of a reunion…”and write in: “Faustino Bernadett, M.D., Sr. Scholarship Fund.”

Alumni Lend a Hand

The story of one prospective applicant

A sought-after medical school candidate, Maria had been accepted to Harvard, UC Irvine, Johns Hopkins, and, of course, UCSF. As she explained it to Dr. Irby, our innovative curriculum, extraordinary research opportunities, and commitment to serving the community all drew her to UCSF. Yet, as she said with tears in her eyes, she felt she couldn’t afford to come to UCSF. Harvard and Johns Hopkins had both offered her a “full ride.” UCSF, on the other hand, was able only to promise her a $5,000 scholarship each year, barely a quarter of the cost of a medical education. Her choice? Attending another top medical school and graduating debt-free or coming to UCSF and graduating with over $200,000 in debt.

Yet Maria’s dilemma is fast becoming the norm. And what it means is that UCSF is at serious risk for losing the best and brightest students to other schools.

The numbers tell the story

Here are the facts: As a result of sharply reduced state support for UCSF, medical students have faced multiple fee increases over the past ten years, for a total increase of more than 300 percent. A student who entered medical school in 2001, for example, and graduated this spring, experienced a fee increase from $11,000 per year to $22,000 per year—resulting in double the amount of expected debt upon graduation. Living expenses in San Francisco add another hefty $20,000 a year.

UCSF alumni reach out

Yet in the face of dramatically declining state funding and sharply rising fees, UCSF alumni are stepping in to help close the gap. In a gesture of extraordinary generosity, Faustino “Tino” Bernadett ’80 reached out to his classmates, inviting them to join him in contributing to a student scholarship fund he has established in honor of his father, the son of Mexican immigrants who became a doctor himself. In a letter he sent to each of his classmates, he announced his $50,000 gift to launch the fund, as well as two $25,000 matching gifts, saying:

“Most of us have met and conquered our midlife crises. It is time to start giving back in a way that inspires and helps the next generation take steps into the ever increasingly complex medical world in which we live…. Remember, as I do, when we started at UCSF… We were determined to make a difference. We have made a difference in the generation we have served. We have spent countless hours with patients that needed us. We have been there at the beginning and at the end of life. We have invented medical devices to further the advance of medicine and developed and performed operations and procedures numbering in the thousands, if not tens of thousands… We have become leaders in our communities and in our country. Now it is our time to help the next generation do the same.”

Leopold Avallone ’65 has also stepped up to the challenge, contributing more than $126,000 to create a named fund— the Leopold T. and Michelle Avallone Fund—for student scholarships. Dr. Avallone reflected: “It came as a great surprise to me that UCSF receives so little funding from the state—less than 10 percent— and I suspect many of my classmates and fellow alums would be just as surprised.”

One of the very first students to receive a UC Regents Scholarship in the 1960s, he went on: “UCSF is such a great school, and it made such a difference in my life. I knew I wanted to do something to give back. But I didn’t want a lab or a piece of machinery named after me. I wanted to help students who really need the money and will be helped by it as I was.”

There is more good news as well. Alumni giving to the School of Medicine for scholarships has nearly doubled in the past year, increasing from $213,000 in 2003-2004 to $400,000 in 2004-2005.

The road ahead

“Still,” Dr. Irby remarks, “we have a long way to go before we have the resources to offer scholarship packages that match what our competitors provide.” Today, though 88 percent of UCSF medical students receive scholarship aid, the average scholarship is just $5,000 a year. “To enable students like Maria to come to UCSF,” Dr. Irby continues, “we must be able to cover a larger portion of a student’s medical school fees.”

If UCSF were to provide full scholarship support for all students with financial need, the total would come to more than $8 million per year. By contrast,UCSF can now only offer $2.2 million per year.

Alumni support matters. In the words of one grateful student, “the exceptional medical education I have been given at UCSF, and the dream of becoming a physician, would have been impossible without financial support. On the eve of the graduation of my class and the fulfillment of that lifelong goal, I wish to offer my most heartfelt thanks.”