Scholarship Awarded for Student's Commitment to Public Health

CINCINNATI—Fourth-year medical student Heather Kaiser is the 2009 recipient of the Charlotte R. Schmidlapp Scholarship.

The $15,000 scholarship is awarded annually on the basis of outstanding academic achievement, community involvement, leadership and involvement in women’s health care.

“My belief is that every physician has a second profession, and that is a career in public health,” says Kaiser, who holds a bachelor of science from Wright State University and a master of public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In addition to her studies at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Kaiser has worked as a fellow for both the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (IOM); currently serves as a board member for the American Medical Association Political Action Committee (AMPAC); and was a recipient of the 2008 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Capstone Award, a prestigious award for the best thesis, given to only 10 of 370 graduating students.

The Schmidlapp gift is administered by Fifth Third Bank, trustee, and is connected by history to Jacob Schmidlapp: a prominent Cincinnati banker and philanthropist whose Union Savings Bank merged with Fifth Third in 1919. The trust has contributed over $1.6 million toward art, health and community initiatives. The scholarship celebrates the memory of Jacob’s daughter, Charlotte. 

Kaiser says she will use the gift to help defray tuition costs.