2022

In 2003, Pursley joined the HMS Financial Aid Committee, which has been instrumental in key financial initiatives, with the ultimate goal of making medical education debt-free for all who attend HMS. He has been the committee’s faculty chair since 2015 and relishes the opportunity to “give students a voice on financial aid needs.” Those needs have evolved as medical school tuition has risen and students face a myriad of obstacles to pursuing the careers they feel called to.

“I think the Medical School has done a lot to try to minimize loans as much as possible and to provide scholarships instead. And I think that’s really important,” he says. “I hope that we will eventually be in a position where the concern about the repayment of student loans wouldn’t be a factor in the choices that medical students make in terms of their decisions about a career.”

He is talking, of course, about fields with acute—if not chronic—needs that might not be as well compensated, especially in lower socioeconomic urban or rural areas.

“I think it is a priority for us to look for ways in which the looming debt wouldn’t play a role in dissuading them from serving in those communities,” he says. He marvels at the specific HMS opportunities now available to support accepted medical students, such as financial support for those traveling long distances to attend the medical school and for those who have overcome substantial social or financial difficulties.

In addition to his volunteer work in the area of financial aid, Pursley has been a member of the HMS Promotion and Review Board, a standing committee that reviews MD student performance to ensure each student meets HMS’s rules governing promotion, standards of professional conduct and responsibility, and requirements for graduation. He’s also been an active participant in Revisit Weekend, an annual event for admitted applicants to visit campus for a second look before making their final decision about which medical school they will attend. 

Pursley understands that his work as a speaker at Revisit Weekend had something to do with the career trajectory of the one who nominated him for the award: Fidencio Saldaña, MD ’01 (Class of 2000), MPH ’05, the current dean of students at HMS and a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

“Fidencio had been an accepted Harvard Medical School student who recalls my spiel at one of those events,” Pursley says with a laugh. “So I like to say that maybe I had a role in recruiting a future Harvard Medical School dean.”

Pursley’s resume of volunteer service has resulted in recognition, such as the HMS Dean’s Community Service Award; the Excellence in Mentoring Award from the Office of Recruitment and Multicultural Affairs; and the HMS Harold Amos Faculty Diversity Award. He was also named as the speaker for the Harold Amos Mentorship Lecture in 2012 and even found time to serve on his 25th and 40th Reunion committees.

When he talks about the award, Pursley is quick to admit that he’s slightly embarrassed and quicker to give credit to those who helped him along the way. He says he remains humbled by the sacrifices and risks taken by his parents, who didn’t have opportunities to attend college, and those who mentored him when he first arrived at Harvard after graduating from Stanford with a bachelor’s degree. He cites then-Dean of Students Carola Eisenberg, MD, psychiatrist and trailblazer for women and minorities, and noted psychiatrist and former Dean of Students Alvin Poussaint, MD, as crucial to his social and emotional adjustment to HMS. All this moral and financial support helped him, of course, but he had long recognized the School needed to do more.

His chairing of the HMS Financial Aid Committee has provided important insights into the kinds of challenges current and prospective medical students face, including factors that may not show up on financial aid application forms.

“Families are complicated, and there’s a waiver process that allows students to share their stories and provide financial data to support needs that weren’t initially anticipated by the committee,” he says.

Pursley’s work in financial aid has also fueled another passion: increasing the socioeconomic diversity of HMS, particularly for low- and middle-income families. Today, 1 in 5 MD students receiving financial aid are from families with an income of $50,000 or less, and half come from families with incomes in the range of $100,000 to $150,000.

But once those students have matriculated, they need a place to air their concerns, so Pursley has led or participated in several mentoring groups, including those that encourage anti-racism efforts in clinical settings, such as dealing with the still-stark differences in infant mortality between white and non-white and non-English speaking populations.

While he notes that the infant mortality rate in the U.S. has dropped substantially over the past 100 years and is cut in half every 25 years, there remains a gap that is unexplained by genetics; strongly correlates with social determinants; and can be addressed through efforts directed at patient care, clinical practices, medical institutions, health care systems, or society. Supporting pathways for students from traditionally under represented backgrounds to pursue careers in health care, including medicine, is one opportunity. 

“A lot of the efforts in anti-racism in my field are directed at trying to understand what and where these differences are and what differences are modifiable in the clinical setting,” he says.”

Mentorship programs allow future clinicians, leaders, and policymakers to use what he calls the “tremendous resources and networks” of HMS to address the disparity in health care outcomes. Aside from personal satisfaction, Pursley says he is already seeing the benefits accrue with the next generation of leaders and mentors in practice and in teaching.

“The generation coming into medical careers is pretty amazing,” he says. “They’re so smart, so worldly, and so committed that it really provides me with a lot of hope to where our profession is going.”