Matthew Carr, who graduated from UC Santa Cruz in June with a degree in biology, will receive the 8th annual Primary Care Physician Award from Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center (SMSC) and the Central California Alliance for Health.
"Matthew is an ideal selection for our eighth annual scholarship," said Stephen Gray, SMSC chief administrative officer. "We are very pleased to be able to offer this scholarship to him and look forward to seeing him return to our community as a doctor."
Carr's father is a cardiologist and his mother an internist. He gained experience working with the underserved in the Santa Cruz community as part of the Community Aid and Resource project (CARe), which he helped establish. CARe is a free clinic and volunteer organization run by UC Santa Cruz students that provides health services and advocacy for underprivileged people in Santa Cruz county.
As a student at UCSC, Carr was awarded the UC Regents Scholarship, C. Fiore Chemistry Prize, Undergraduate Research in the Sciences Award, and the Crown Undergraduate Research Fellowship. He graduated with highest honors in biology and summa cum laude, and has been accepted to medical school at Sydney Kimmel Medical College in Philadelphia.
The $10,000 annual award was established by SMSC and the Alliance in conjunction with the UC Santa Cruz Foundation to help carry out a mission to provide high-quality primary care to Central Coast Medi-Cal patients. The award supports a graduating UCSC senior who will be entering an accredited medical school, and the recipient must intend to return to the Central Coast to practice in primary care.
Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center is part of the Sutter Health network.
