The Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), the M.D.-Ph.D. program at UW Medicine, was established in 1971. The program is dedicated to training medical scientists who want to carry out fundamental research in clinically important human diseases. Students spend their first two years in medical school and then select a laboratory to do their Ph.D. After obtaining a Ph.D., trainees return to medical school for their clinical clerkships. We are fortunate that our students are supported by the contributors and funds listed below.
Corser Education Fund
This endowment was created in 1992 with a gift from the estate of Philip Woodrow Corser. Philip Corser was born in Seattle in 1911 and was the third child of George Sumner and Cara L. Corser. For years, the family traveled throughout the United States, seeking a cure for George’s asthma; however, he died in 1917 at the age of 47. His son, Philip, was little more than five years old.
Philip Corser became an able seaman and served as third mate on merchant ships during the 1930s. He was a journeyman welder at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard when he retired in 1968. During his career, he also was an active member of (and served as an officer in) the United Brotherhood of Welders, Cutters and Helpers of America.
Joshua Green Foundation Endowed Scholarship
This endowment, which supports students in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the UW School of Medicine, was established in 1990 by the Joshua Green Foundation. Graduates of this program complete the requirements for both an M.D. and Ph.D. degree and are equipped to bridge the clinical and basic sciences.
John Green had three sons, Thomas, George, and Joshua. The three set out from their Maryland family home in 1824, bound for Texas. Along the way, Joshua and Thomas found opportunity in Jackson, Miss., where they opened a drugstore. Joshua’s son, William Green, married Bentonia Harrison. Their son, Joshua, named after his grandfather, was born in 1869 in the former mansion of the governor of Mississippi.
William Green’s family moved to Seattle in 1886, when Joshua was 17 years old. Joshua found jobs as a chainman on a surveying crew and as a purser on a sternwheeler steamer known as the Henry Bailey, one of the historic “mosquito fleet” vessels that connected Seattle to settlements along the Canadian border. Anxious to own a business, Green persuaded three fellow officers of the Henry Bailey to become partners in a 100-foot sternwheeler steamer called the Fanny Lake. The partners expanded their fleet and created a side business of selling and delivering wholesale goods to customers in outlying towns. The firm was eventually named La Conner Trading and Transportation Co., with Joshua Green as president.
In 1913, Green founded the Puget Sound Navigation Co., a cross-Sound ferry service. However, with the construction of paved highways, many passengers abandoned steamers for their own automobiles, and the new interurban Puget Sound Electric Railway moved people faster than Green’s ships. He sold most of his shares in the company in 1926.
Joshua Green developed a new interest that would prove fortuitous: banking. In 1925, he purchased Peoples Saving Bank, which had fallen on hard times, for $200,000. He changed the name to Peoples Bank and Trust two years later. Because branch banking was not allowed at the time, the firm added First Avenue Bank as a wholly owned but independent subsidiary in 1929, followed in subsequent years by the acquisition of banks in Renton and North Seattle. The bank prospered. By 1949, when Green’s son, Joshua, Jr., was named president of the bank, it had deposits of $128 million and was serving 103,000 customers. By 1969, the year the elder Joshua Green turned 100, deposits surged to $400 million. (In 1988, U.S. Bancorp of Portland acquired Peoples Bank and Trust and renamed it U.S. Bank of Washington.)
Joshua Green died at the age of 105 in 1975.
Alexander Grinstein Endowed Fellowship Fund
This endowment was established in 1992 to honor the memory of Alexander Grinstein.
Dr. Alexander Grinstein was a 1921 graduate of the University of Washington, earning his B.A. in the natural sciences from the College of Education. He went on to medical school and came back to the UW to serve as team physician to Husky football players for many years. Dr. Grinstein passed away in 1984.
Turner Society Endowed Fellowship Fund
The Turner Society was established in 1988 to ensure the School of Medicine’s ability to uphold founding Dean Edward L. Turner’s standards of excellence in medical education. This endowed fellowship, created in 1992, not only enhances the school’s ability to attract and support outstanding students in the Medical Scientist Training Program, but also honors the members of the School of Medicine Dean’s Club, the Turner Society.
West Scholarship Fund
This fund, established by a trust, is used to support scholarships within the Medical Student Training Program.