Philanthropy News
Increasing
opportunity for all
Medical student Akeem Bartley focuses on increasing minority
representation in medicine with scholarship support
BY TYLER FRANCISCHINE | PHOTO BY KYLE WALKER
When Akeem Bartley was an 11-year-old living in rural
Jamaica, he made a promise to himself: He would pursue
a career in medicine, a path that would allow him to
provide life-sustaining care to those in need.
“I’m from a small community where there is no nearby
hospital, only a clinic where a doctor visits every other
Thursday,” Bartley says. “When I was 11, my mom got
pneumonia during one of those in-between periods. I
remember feeling enraged, saying, ‘I’m going to be the
change I want to see here for my community.’”
Bartley, a third-year UF College of Medicine student,
has taken all the necessary steps to keep his promise,
thanks in part to receiving the William W. and Marie C.
Wolff Scholarship.
Bartley maintains his
passion for serving
his community by
working to solidify a
pipeline for younger
minority students to
achieve their goals of
becoming health care
professionals. He helps
coordinate the UF
College of Medicine’s
Health Care Summer
Institute, which affords
junior and senior high
school students from
rural and underserved
areas the opportunity to shadow doctors and receive
SAT tutoring and guidance on college admissions essays.
“It’s critical to have a pipeline at the grassroots level to
bring underrepresented minority students here to the
UF College of Medicine,” he says. “That pipeline starts in
high school and ends with medical training.
“Between those two points, there are a lot of obstacles.
We guide them along that process by making them
competitive college applicants.”
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Brian Palmer (right), has passed on his Gator pride to his children, Joshua Palmer and Jillian Johnson, pictured here
holding a photo of her mother, the late Lee Berkowitz-Palmer.
A LEGACY EXTENDED
Two generations of alums give back to future PAs
BY TYLER FRANCISCHINE
For the Palmer-Johnson family of Lakeland, Florida, the UF School of Physician
Assistant Studies features prominently in its collective past and also its present
and future.
Nearly 30 years to the day after Brian Palmer and his late former wife, Lee
Berkowitz-Palmer, graduated from UF as PAs in 1979, their daughter, Jillian
Johnson, completed the same program at the UF School of Physician Assistant
Studies in 2009. Palmer and Johnson have served their Lakeland community
as PAs for years and credit their UF training for equipping them with the
knowledge and skills to impact patients.
Brian Palmer says he and his family want to give back to the institution that
provided them with so many opportunities by establishing the Palmer-Johnson
Family PA Scholarship Fund.
“PA school can be quite a financial burden on students,” Palmer says. “The
majority of these students are not going directly from their undergraduate
years to this program. Many of them have careers and families and other life
experiences. I thought it would be helpful to contribute to their education and
help with that burden.”
Palmer works with his daughter in the emergency department of Lakeland
Regional Health. Johnson calls her parents “pioneers of the PA profession” and
role models for many in their community and beyond. She says the scholarship,
which has not yet been awarded to its first students, will ensure the legacy her
parents created continues to expand to future generations of PAs.
“Our family has always had a genuine sense of gratitude and appreciation
for being given the opportunity to be PAs,” Johnson says. “It’s allowed us to
participate in a great profession and to truly make a difference. To give others
a similar opportunity through education is very near and dear to our hearts.”
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