23rd Annual Sinkler Miller Medical Association's
Scholarship Banquet
The 23rd Annual Sinkler Miller Medical Association's Scholarship banquet was held last weekend in Oakland and they awarded nine scholarships to students who are studying to be physicians or to go into some field of medical care.
This event was laudable because the Black community needs more young Black students studying medicine. When looking at the aging doctors at the banquet, it becomes clear that more Black doctors are needed. Most of the doctors were in their 50's through 70's; this is great wisdom assembled but that wisdom needs to be transmitted to younger minds that will replenish their ranks.
Health care has become one of the basic needs of all people and especially the Black poor who cannot afford private hospital care. Research has shown that Black and Brown doctors usually go back into their communities and take up practice there, as opposed to new white doctors who usually go after the highest paying jobs possible and not necessarily work or care about the community from which they came.
The Sinkler Miller Association was formed to improve the health care of African Americans and other ethnic minorities in the Bay Area and to retain Black physicians within this area. This association is connected to two larger statewide organizations, Golden State Medical Association and the National Medical Association. These are Black medical associations that work to provide the best medical care possible to the Black community, and they work to ensure that their ranks of Black doctors are replenished and focused on the Black community.
To this end, Gibbs salutes the Sinkler Miller Medical Association, the
Golden State Medical Association, and the National Medical
Associations--brothers and sisters who are giving back to the community from
which they came and remembering the cost to their parents and also those
parents who were the Civil Rights workers who paid a great price for them to be
able to shine as they now do!
Gibbs Editorial
10/23/06
