A pair of University of Lethbridge awards will help educate the next generation of healthcare professionals in southern Alberta.
A Pincher Creek family, along with physicians from a local clinic have established the awards.
Drs. Beverly and Tracy Burton, both physicians practising in Pincher Creek, together with their mother Christine who is a retired science teacher, have created the Burton Family Bursary for Women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics).
“It’s important we give women the opportunity,” says Christine. “Not everybody has the funding, and we don’t want that to be the barrier for someone to be able to go into the sciences, to find their passion and make a difference in the world and themselves.”
Tracy and Beverly, along with fellow physicians at the Associate Clinic, have also established the Pincher Creek and Piikani Health and Medical Scholarship for a continuing ULethbridge undergraduate student from Pincher Creek or the Piikani Nation in any degree program who is intending to pursue a career in a health or medical field.
“We hope that people from this area will decide to go into a medical field, whether that’s as a physician, a nurse or an allied health professional, and then say they want to come back to the community that supported them,” says Tracy.
Both awards have been matched by the ULethbridge Board of Governors, doubling the impact of their investments.
