June 27, 2007

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — UC Davis medical student Karen Alfonso has been selected to receive the 2007-08 Janet Gordon Armour, M.D. Scholarship, which benefits an outstanding first-year female student pursuing primary care medicine. The award, established in 1997, honors Janet Gordon Armour, a 1978 graduate of the UC Davis School of Medicine  and one of only a few female graduates at the time.

Alfonso, who just finished her first year of medical school, will receive a $4,000 award. Born in the Philippines, she lived in the San Francisco Bay Area briefly before moving to California's Central Valley, where she graduated from Los Banos High School. She earned her bachelor's degree in psychology at UC Davis in 2004, and a master's degree from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in 2006. As an undergraduate, Alfonso shadowed a family practice physician, an experience that triggered her interest in primary care medicine.

“Primary care medicine interests me because it provides not just a simple glimpse into the lives of patients, but a more thorough view of people beyond their ailments,” Alfonso said. “It allows for the development of long-lasting relationships between a physician and her patients. It is one of the few areas of medicine that allows for continuity of care.”

Alfonso is a co-director of the Bayanihan clinic, one of the free clinics in the Sacramento area where students of the UC Davis School of Medicine serve as volunteers. Located at 923 V St., the clinic is open on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon. It provides culturally and linguistically sensitive primary care to the underserved Filipino population, particularly World War II veterans and recent immigrants, and including the uninsured population in Sacramento.

Alfonso continues to develop her interest in primary care by attending events held by different primary care student-interest groups, such as the Family Medicine Interest Group, the Internal Medicine Interest Group and the Pediatrics Interest Group. In the upcoming school year, Alfonso will be one of the leaders of the Family Medicine Interest Group.

Alfonso also is a member of the American Association of Family Practitioners. During her summer break, she is shadowing a family physician in the Philippines to learn about the different methods and kinds of care physicians provide.

The Armour Scholarship is awarded annually. Armour, after receiving her medical degree from the UC Davis School of Medicine in 1978, completed her residency in family practice in Fresno, and then practiced in the Paradise, California, area. She died in 1997 at the age of 48. Helping to select the scholarship recipient were her husband, Jerry, who still lives in Paradise; her mother, Helen Gordon; and her sister, Liane Haynes.

Donations to the Janet Gordon Armour, M.D. Scholarship can be made by calling the Alumni Affairs office at UC Davis Health System, (916) 734-9410.