Med student needs help to stay in school

Terisa Miller has always wanted to help persons through medicine, and is doing everything in her power to acquire the skills to become a doctor.

But her dream is fading as she cannot find the money to pay for tuition at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, where she is pursuing a bachelor of medicine in surgery degree.

“My grandaunt, she passed when I was in, I think, the second grade, and it really took a toll on me. She usually always told me that she wanted me to be a nurse or a doctor and so, from then, I tried my best to work hard and now here I am in medical school. I love helping others,” she said. Miller noted that two students from her alma mater Meadowbrook High School, who she was very close to, passed away after being diagnosed with cancer and leptospirosis, respectively.

“I mean, it was very hard and heartbreaking and sad and I just, you know, want to help,” she said. In her first semester of year one, she maintained a 3.75 GPA. But annual tuition is US$28,000 (approximately $4.2 million) and, right now, she needs to pay $700,000 by the next two weeks in order to be allowed to sit her exams this semester. Leading the charge to help her make up the deficit is her mother, Michelle Camaron. She hosted a barbecue recently to raise funds but that did not make a huge dent.

“This month, she cannot sit the exam without the school fee put together to pay,” said Camaron. After receiving her student loan subsidy and calculating the earnings from the fundraiser, along with donations from friends and family, Camaron has only been able to pay $215,000. She is hoping for a similar miracle like what they received during Miller’s first semester.

“Is like me a walk pon road and me just a talk to God. From me know God, a di first me ever talk to God so much, and we find di money and she pass the exam. She get three A and one B-plus and bwoy, me nuh know weh fi tell you seh,” she said. “Mi a try mi best now and me a hold on to God and me just hope that some miracle work now and she can sit the exam. If it’s me alone, it just can’t work, so me go to all places where me can drop off some letter and feel like there is hope.”

Campus registrar at the university, Donovan Stanbury, told THE WEEKEND STAR that the high fees for medical students is as a result of both the inflation of the US dollar as well as the price to host those courses at the university.

“It is costly to do medicine. The medical lecturers are more costly to pay than the other lecturers, that’s one cost. Two, we have to buy reagents for them to do their lab work and that kind of thing, equipment. It’s also the case that our medical students do spend some time in the hospitals and those things are not cheap. So the cost for medicine is very, very favourable with what obtains elsewhere in the Caribbean, and certainly in the United States,” he said. Miller is cognisant that she could be forced to halt her studies, but is determined to keep a positive attitude.

“I know that everything will work out in my favour because God has brought me here and I know that he will not take me away from achieving my goals,” she said. It [financial assistance] would mean so much to me because it would alleviate the financial burden from my mother and it would allow me to continue pursuing my goals in the future.”

----------

Persons wishing to assist Terisa Miller may contact her mother, Michelle Camaron, at 876-390-1923