Ariel Cox, a researcher in psychiatry at the University of Mississippi, works in the university's Translational Research Center. An endowment established by alumnus Dr. Thomas Houston will help students from rural Mississippi pursue careers in health professions. Submitted photo
Longtime medical educator’s gift to help students from rural Mississippi communities
By Bill Dabney
Dr. Thomas Houston, a University of Mississippi alumnus with a 45-year career as a family medicine educator and tobacco control advocate, has made a major gift in support of Ole Miss students who want to similarly devote their lives to careers in health professions.
The physician’s $300,000 gift established the Thomas Houston M.D. Health Professions Scholarship Endowment and will benefit students in the College of Liberal Arts who have participated in the university’s Health Professions Advising Office.
“It’s clear that students who take advantage of the office’s guidance and counseling are committed to a future in the health sciences and have a great chance of being accepted to graduate studies in health-related fields, thus making them ideal candidates for the scholarship,” said Houston, who lives in Dublin, Ohio.
“I hope these scholarships will help students in the health sciences complete their goals of finishing their work at Ole Miss and enter further studies in careers devoted to health and health care,” said the donor who earned a bachelor’s degree from Ole Miss in 1973 and his M.D. from the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1977.
The university’s Health Professions Advising Office counsels students on available health care career opportunities and guides them toward a competitive application for graduate-level education.
“We take their aspirations and help them to become the best candidate for professional school,” said Sovent Taylor, the office’s director. “Thanks to Dr. Houston, students from rural Mississippi who are aiming for degrees in medicine, dentistry, public health, and health research fields can now have financial assistance to help them realize their dream of becoming health care professionals.”
Why rural Mississippians?
“I am from Sylvarena, Mississippi, a little village of about 100 in Smith County,” Houston said. “I know firsthand that rural students often have fewer resources and advantages compared with others and wanted to reward rural students who have chosen health science careers.”
After graduating from medical school, Houston completed his residency at UMMC in family medicine and had a 10-year career in academic family medicine that began at Ohio State University and continued at medical schools in Georgia and Kansas. In 1990 he was recruited by the American Medical Association to lead their tobacco control and public health advocacy programs.
He received the U.S. Surgeon General’s Medallion for his work in tobacco control and has received several awards for teaching and other accomplishments in family medicine and public health.
From 2003 to 2005, he held the Jim Finks Endowed Chair in Health Promotion at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans and was professor of family medicine and public health.
“After Hurricane Katrina, our family moved back to Ohio, where I was on staff at the McConnell Heart Health Center in Columbus,” he said. There, he worked in preventive cardiology, directed tobacco cessation and policy initiatives for OhioHealth, and founded a nationally certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist Training Program at The Breathing Association, a local health charity.
Retired from clinical practice, he is an adjunct professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Ohio State and is active in medical writing, editing and consulting while participating in volunteer work locally and nationally.
At Ole Miss, Houston was a Carrier Scholar, president of the biology club, and installing officer for Beta Beta Beta biology honorary society when it was reinstated in 1977. Additionally, he was a member of Alpha Epsilon Delta premedical honorary, president of the Wesley Foundation and a member of Delta Psi fraternity.
He also played trumpet as part of the Pride of the South marching band all four years. In fact, those trumpet skills led to his 41-year marriage.
“Cheryn and I met in a community band in Columbus, Ohio,” the donor recalled. “She was a professional flutist and music educator at the time, and she continued to do so until becoming a full-time mom several years after we were married.”
The couple enjoys traveling, gardening, cooking, hiking, and music.
The Thomas Houston M.D. Health Professions Scholarship Endowment is open to gifts from individuals and organizations by mailing a check, with the endowment’s name noted in the memo line, to the University of Mississippi Foundation, 406 University Ave., Oxford, MS 38655; or by clicking here.
