How a scholarship changed one medical student’s life

The phone call changed the trajectory of Justin Kenney’s life.

At the time, Justin was working as a Firefighter/EMT with the Cincinnati Fire Department. He was in his late twenties, living with his wife in a one-bedroom apartment in Batavia, and had been accepted into the College of Medicine. He had filled out an application for financial aid and was hoping for the best—perhaps a few thousand dollars a year—when Art Pancioli, MD, the Richard C. Levy Endowed Chair & Professor of Emergency Medicine, called to update him about his scholarship status.

“How would you like to go to medical school for free?” Pancioli asked.

Justin was speechless. “I bawled like a baby,” he says. “That someone would care that much about investing in this community—that some person, without even knowing me, would invest in my future— is overwhelming. I get choked up just thinking about it.”

Growing up in Cincinnati, Justin wanted to become a superhero. “I know it sounds cheesy,” he says, “but I really wanted to be a fireman and a doctor. I couldn’t explain it.”

After graduating from Vanderbilt University, Justin moved back to Cincinnati, acquired his EMS certification, and began working for the Cincinnati Fire Department. “I loved the job, loved the community, loved my co-workers, but I felt called to pursue a greater scope of practice, because you’re very limited in what you’re able to do in the pre-hospital setting,” he says. “To utilize my gifts to their fullest capacity, I felt called to go to medical school.”

Today, Justin is on track to become an emergency medicine physician. In addition to his regular coursework, he has created hands-on workshops to educate fellow students about the realities of emergency medical practice, conducted research in acute pain management after traumatic injury in the pre-hospital setting, and served as president of the Emergency Medicine Interest Group on campus. He’s scheduled to graduate in 2024.

If his future turns out as perfectly as his present, he will perform his emergency medicine residency at UC and then practice medicine in the Cincinnati community.   

Justin also hopes to become the kind of superhero who funded his medical school scholarship.

“I’ve made it my life goal ever since to pay it forward. I want to pay back this gift, and I want to do this anonymously for some other random medical student someday, and many more if I can help it. My scholarship is the kind of life-changing event that makes you want to be a better person every time you think about it. It makes me want to get up and be a better doctor every day. It has influenced everything I will ever do, forever.”

Featured image at top: Care Crawley building. Photo/provided.