Roland wins ASA Mentoring Grant
The American Society of Anesthesiologists has awarded fourth-year medical student Gavin Roland with a $5,000 ASA Mentoring Grant Award for a new conference to be held at McGovern Medical School in 2025.
The goal of the ASA Mentoring Grant Award is to foster mentorship within the ASA. The program provides funding up to $5,000 to mentor/mentee pairs who submit a project that addresses the goals of the Committee on Professional Diversity. The project may be oriented to research, education, or a political advocacy initiative that clearly speaks to the mission and duties of the ASA Committee on Professional Diversity.
“Winning this award is a true testament that we, as medical students, have the power to make a difference within our communities,” Roland said. “This conference has been a 2-year endeavor that began with a vision to increase exposure and opportunities to learn about anesthesia through a humanistic, ethical, and technical lens while creating space for personal and professional development.”
Roland’s team was awarded the grant for his project, “Mirrored Mentorship.” Mirrored Mentorship is an outreach component of the first annual medical-student-run conference centered around Humanities, Ethics, and Anesthesia Technical Skills. The project targets undergraduate students of underrepresented communities interested in healthcare and immerses them in both didactic and hands-on sessions related to airway management and BLS with additional provisions of professional identity development facilitated by an intentionally academically tiered panel discussion from medical students to full professors from various backgrounds in medicine.
“I am thankful to be at an institution in which I feel supported by my mentors, peers, and several faculty within the UTHealth Houston system who allowed for the progression of an idea to flourish into a tangible event that is set to host its inaugural medical and undergraduate students on March 1-2 in 2025,” Roland said.