Life Is Good for Ohio Physicians of Tomorrow Scholarship Recipient

Ecstatic. That’s how fourth-year NEOMED student Stephen Campbell felt when he learned that he had been awarded a $10,000 Ohio Physicians of Tomorrow scholarship from the American Medical Association. The only child of a single mother, Campbell, 23, has funded his education primarily through federal student loans. This year, he has the added expense of traveling around the country interviewing for an anesthesiology residency next year. So, he’s particularly grateful for the considerable dent that the $10,000 award will make in his student debt.

A graduate of Akron’s Firestone High School and a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Akron, Campbell is now completing his final year of the accelerated six-year B.S./M.D. degree program.  The curriculum is demanding. As a peer mentor, Campbell passes along the excellent advice he received from upperclassmen when he was a first-year medical student. It’s all about balance, he says: Exercise every day. Eat healthy. Enjoy hobbies. Stay connected with family.

He shares a house with other NEOMED students, and when one of his younger roommates asks advice, he tells him, “Stay calm, stay relaxed, life is good. Use the time management skills you have developed.’’

Campbell chose to pursue anesthesiology as a career because he enjoys the theoretical side of physiology and pharmacology but also likes being in the operating room.  A self-described ‘’hands-on’’ person, in and out of the OR, Campbell plays basketball and piano whenever possible.

The prestigious AMA award went this year to just 27 Ohio recipients. It does not carry any requirements for where the recipients work after graduation, but Campbell said that regardless of where he spends the next four years, he intends to return to Northeast Ohio to begin his career.

“This is the community that raised me. It would be nice to return and set up a practice for the community that supported me over the years,’’ he said. “This place feels like home.’’