This scholarship has been established within the Gaston Scholars program to further grow the underrepresented population of African-American medical students at the College of Medicine. Dr. Oxley was an alumna of the College of Medicine and first African-American to earn a medical degree from UC. This scholarship honors her pioneering spirit in paving the way for future medical students.
Lucy Orintha Oxley was born in 1912 in Harrisburg, Pa. Her parents, a teacher and a Harvard-educated Episcopal minister, moved to Cincinnati when she was three years old. Oxley wanted to be a doctor from her earliest years. She excelled in her class work, graduating from Woodward High School at age 16. She applied to the UC College of Medicine and was accepted due to pressure from her father who was rector of St. Andrews Episcopal Church in the West End, and some influential family friends.
Oxley faced discrimination while at UC in both her social and academic life. She was called racial slurs by some of her classmates and professors, yet she was loved, respected and supported by others. Her dedication to medicine enabled her to persevere, and she graduated in 1935, among the top 15 in her class.
Dr. Oxley received many honors during her career, including the AMA Special Achievement Award (1967), and she was the first woman named Family Physician of the Year by the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians (1984). Dr. Oxley had over 200 patients at the time of her death in 1991.
In 2008, Johnie and Kenneth Davis, MD, established the Lucy Oxley, MD, African American Medical Student Scholarship to honor the memory of Lucy Oxley and to help fund medical education for those who are following in her footsteps.
“I’m the current recipient of the Lucy Oxley Scholarship. With each step that I take every morning as I climb the stairs to enter the UC College of Medicine, I am humbled, grateful, and reminded why I work so hard every day. However, this opportunity would not be possible for me if it were not for Dr. Lucy Oxley. As the first African American to earn a medical degree from UC College of Medicine, Dr. Oxley opened the doors to allow African Americans to chase a rewarding career that may have otherwise been deemed not only improbable but impossible. For this, not only am I grateful, but indebted. Throughout my career in medicine, I will strive to continue this mission of bolstering representation in medicine. There are currently fewer black males in medical school than there were in 1978. Through mentorship and collaboration with leadership, I aim to increase the pipeline and ultimately the black male representation in medicine. I currently have interest in numerous specialties but am largely drawn towards the field of ophthalmology”. – Austin Thompson