Becoming a recipient of the Penelope Foster and John McBain Medical Scholarship has opened doors for Jesse Osbourne — and he’s paying the life-changing generosity forward.
Jesse Osbourne (BSc 2014) was midway through a science degree at the University of Melbourne when he realised his future wasn’t in engineering, as he’d always imagined, but in medicine.
At the time, Jesse’s mother had been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. Jesse and his five brothers and sisters grew up in Craigieburn in Melbourne’s outer north, raised by their mum.
“Money was always tight but my mother was a pragmatic woman and we made things work,” says Jesse. She continued to work during punishing chemotherapy and radiation treatment, determined to continue to support her family.
“Mum’s illness certainly impacted my view of healthcare and the role of doctors. It was an overwhelming experience and by the time she died in 2012, I wanted a career in medicine,” says Jesse.
His initial application to Melbourne Medical School was unsuccessful and, after his mother died, Jesse faced many challenges. He became the major income earner in his family and took on responsibility for raising his two younger siblings. Already working part-time tutoring high school students, Jesse decided to start his own tutoring business so he could pay the household bills and care for his family.
However, the urge to study medicine remained and, in 2023, 10 years after his initial application to Melbourne Medical School, Jesse applied through the Graduate Access Melbourne program, which is a special entry scheme for students facing adversity or hardship.
“For a long time, I assumed I wasn’t going to be able to get myself back on track and to reapply after so many years out of university. There were barriers and it took a long time to be able to set myself up so going back to study was a possibility.”
Applying through the Graduate Access Melbourne program meant Jesse was automatically considered for the Penelope Foster and John McBain Medical Scholarship — an annually awarded fouryear scholarship that empowers students in need of assistance to complete a medical degree. Jesse is the 2023 recipient of the scholarship, which he describes as “life-changing”.
It has allowed me to work a lot less and to focus on my studies. I haven’t had to sacrifice learning opportunities because I needed to work instead says Jesse.
“I am now based in hospitals, which is where I’ll spend most of the rest of my course, and I’ve been able to do things like go into an operating theatre and learn at the table, be part of study groups with my cohort and I’ve attended extracurricular workshops about everything from suturing and career planning to exam revision. Without the scholarship, I would have missed those opportunities because I would have had to work instead.”
Dr Penelope Foster (MBBS 1976) and her husband, Associate Professor John McBain AO, are pioneers of IVF medicine in Melbourne. Having faced challenges and difficulties themselves in earlier years, they established the scholarship to ease the journey of medical students demonstrating an obvious need for support.
Professor McBain was raised in social housing in Glasgow and his life may have looked very different if he hadn’t won a WH Rhodes Travelling Scholarship during his last year of high school. It allowed him to travel to Expo ’67 in Montreal, Canada, where he met a group of students who were intent on a career in medicine.
“And I thought, ‘I can do that too,’” he recalls. When he eventually graduated from the University of Glasgow, he was the first of his family to obtain a degree and has carved out a prolific medical career.
“At this stage in our lives, where we have had good fortune with our medical careers and investments, we can try to make it easier for someone else,” he says.
Similarly, Dr Foster’s career path has been forged through hard work and determination. As one of eight children, her parents made significant sacrifices to provide their children with access to private schooling and university.
Having made her own way through university on a Commonwealth scholarship and by working a series of jobs, Dr Foster wanted to establish a scholarship that would allow each recipient to be able to fully enjoy student life, to be able to make friends and socialise and to not have to worry about finding money to cover rent and living costs.
Deeply appreciative of the freedom he has to immerse himself in his medical studies thanks to the scholarship, Jesse reached out to this year’s scholarship recipient to offer mentorship. It was a kindness extended to Jesse by the 2022 scholarship recipient, too.
“Medicine is emotionally challenging and it’s quite a self-driven degree,” says Jesse. He credits an amazing support network as the key to his success.
You can work hard, you can achieve your goals but it’s the people you surround yourself with that will make all the difference. This scholarship has allowed me the freedom to foster those connections with others and support and be supported by the people around me, and I include both Penelope and John in my circle of people.
With a few more years of training ahead of him, Jesse is grateful for his scholarship every day and he fully intends to seize new opportunities now afforded to him, thanks to Penelope and John’s generosity.
“It has opened the door to a career path I had assumed was no longer possible for me. It has provided me a second chance and, most importantly, has set me up for success.”
Find out how you can make a difference to current students: medicine.unimelb.edu.au/engage/support