New Scholarship Fund for AOM Students

In the fall of 2005, Trudy McAlister received the Patient of the Year Award from the AAOM for her philanthropic work. Earlier that year, Mrs. McAlister made generous contributions that led to the establishment of a scholarship fund for students of Oriental medicine. She also endowed the fund with a percentage from her final estate.

In May 2007, the Trudy McAlister Fund completed the final legal organization, establishing it as a nonprofit charitable corporation. Trudy has already contributed thousands of dollars to the fund. In March 2007, another grateful acupuncture patient by the name of Mary Hecht included the Trudy McAlister Fund as a recipient of a large portion of her estate. Donations to the fund are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

The East West College of Natural Medicine, in Sarasota, Fla., has recently made a large donation to the scholarship fund. This is the first college to contribute to the fund. This fund is established to support students in the field who show promise of making significant contributions to clinical practice and/or to the understanding of the role of traditional Oriental medicine in a modern context. The scholarships are divided into two categories:

• basic support scholarships for students who have completed at least one full academic year of their professional training and who, in the opinion of their faculty and the advisors of the fund, show unusual promise in the practice of this medicine; and
• support for students who have entered the last phases of their clinical training or who have undertaken post-graduate studies in Oriental medicine and who are, in the opinion of their faculty and the fund advisors, most likely to: contribute to the successful integration of OM into modern American medicine, and ensure that such integration preserves the historical and classic character, philosophy and practice of OM, as it is integrated into this modern context.

Applications will soon be available online at www.triskeles.org. Applications also will be sent to each ACAOM-accredited and candidate school. The fund will allow each school to recommend a maximum of three students for scholarships. Only students fully matriculated in ACAOM-accredited or candidate schools will qualify. Gifts will be made to the school(s) for the winning eligible recipient(s).

The fund has an advisory committee. Gene Bruno and William Prensky are the permanent advisors. Doreen Chen, Martin Herbkersman and Pam-ela Lee are the term advisors. These advisors will make the recommendations to the Triskeles Foundation for final approval of scholarships. The Triskeles Foundation oversees the fund's assets. The advisors encourage individuals and organizations to make donations. All donations should be sent to:

The Trudy McAlister Fund
c/o The Triskeles Foundation
224 Nantmeal Rd.
Glenmoore, PA 19343

For more information about the Trudy McAlister Fund, contact Gene Bruno at acudoc27@aol.com.