More than 100 supporters, donors, students, faculty, and staff participated in the fourth annual UC Riverside School of Medicine Celebration of Medical Education on Saturday, Nov. 20, 2021. The fundraising event was held online for the second consecutive year due to COVID-19 restrictions.

In keeping with tradition, the event was a salute to UC Riverside’s nearly 50-year history of medical education, with an emphasis the impact being made through the Mission Award Scholarship Program. The Mission Award provides students with the funds to support their medical education in exchange for their commitment that they will practice as  primary care physicians in Inland Southern California for at least five years.

“The Mission Award allows our students to make an early commitment to return as practicing physicians to the Inland Empire,” said Deborah Deas, M.D., M.P.H., vice chancellor for Health Affairs and the Mark and Pam Rubin Dean of the School of Medicine. “This directly contributes to addressing the ongoing physician shortage in our region.”

Deas then announced that the event had met its fundraising goal for a full, four-year Mission Award scholarship.

“I would like to say a special thank you to all of you. Because of your support, that of Eric Anderson and Anderson Community Partners match pool, and the contributions of UCR Foundation Board members, I am delighted to announce that we have reached our $175,000 goal to fund a full, four-year, mission award scholarship,” she said.

Deas also acknowledged the generosity of the Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP), which donated $2.6 million in both 2020 and 2021 to provide 23 Mission Awards to students.

“IEHP has been an outstanding partner and we highly value our relationship with them,” she said.

The event also featured a celebration of the life and legacy of entrepreneur and philanthropist Mark Rubin, who passed away on February 13, 2021, at the age of 84. Among their frequent and generous gifts to UC Riverside, Rubin and his wife, Pam, provided the funds necessary to endow the dean’s position at the School of Medicine. The tribute was highlighted by a video that told Rubin’s story as a Holocaust survivor and immigrant who fell in love with the Riverside community and dedicated himself to making it a better place.

“Mark and Pam will always be associated with our School of Medicine,” said Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox in the video tribute. “They were also key members of the effort to build the Alumni and Visitors Center, a huge, significant contribution financially, and made major contributions to engineering’s Center for Environmental Research and Technology.”

“The Rubin’s touch on this campus is nearly everywhere and we will forever be grateful for those contributions,” he added.

“Mark always wanted to ask me for an update on the School of Medicine, and I started out by telling him that almost 65% of our students had ties to the Inland Empire,” Deas said. “He stopped me in my tracks and said ‘That is exactly what we should be doing. Educating people, educating students from the area, because they are the students who will become physicians and return to serve in the Inland Empire.’”

Following the tribute, attendees enjoyed a video about the Mission Scholarship program (embedded at the top of this page) that featured first-person accounts of MS2s Alma Esparza Castañeda and Elizabeth Celaya-Ojeda and fourth-year Loma Linda University internal medicine resident and UCR SOM graduate G. Alden Holmes on how the Mission Scholarship program made a difference in their educational journeys. That was followed by the keynote address by first-year medical student and Mission Award Recipient Jose A. Morales. Morales, a first-generation college graduate from El Centro, California, shared the story that as a kindergarten student, he had said that he wanted to grow up to be a doctor.

“I am sure that at five my reasoning for becoming a physician was different than it is today. However, my reasons for pursuing a career in medicine stem from my life experiences as well as my community, the Imperial Valley,” Morales said.

“I am so fortunate to be in a position where I can direct my full attention to my education and not have the constant worry about my finances,” he added.

Attendees enjoyed a pair of musical performances. The first was a piano medley of Frank Sinatra hits played by MS1 Katrina Villavert. Villavert, who completed her undergraduate work in biology at UC Riverside, has played in piano competitions for more than a decade and played at Carnegie Hall in 2015 while a junior at Walnut High School.

The second performance was by UC Riverside undergraduate music performance student Karen Keonorasak, who performed a striking rendition of the song “You Say” by Lauren Daigle.

Highlights of the celebration and information on supporting the Mission Scholarship Program can be found on https://somgala.ucr.edu. Additional information on supporting the School of Medicine can be found at https://medschool.ucr.edu/giving.

“It’s been exciting to witness the growth of the Celebration of Medical Education event over the past four years,” said Executive Director of Development Edna Yohannes. “This is the first year that we were able to raise a full, four-year Mission Award and it would not have been possible without the relentless support of our friends, and the contributions of School of Medicine students, staff and faculty. Every dollar makes a difference in advancing our mission.”