By Lincoln G. Peters
Monrovia, Liberia; August 22, 2025 – The Office of Liberia’s First Lady, Kartumu Yarta Boakai, has taken a giant step to address critical medical gap within the Liberian health sector, especially maternal childbirth.
The First Lady Office hosted an interactive forum for over 100 Liberian health practitioners to recruit candidates for more than 75 fully funded scholarships in critical medical specializations.
For doctors, the scholarships cover a wide range of high-demand fields, including various areas of Oncology, such as medical, pediatric, gynecological, surgical, and radiation oncology, as well as breast surgery, pain and palliative medicine, pathology, interventional radiology, and head and neck surgery.
Other available specialties include reproductive medicine and embryology, diabetology and hypertension, pediatric cardiology and endocrinology, critical care, neurosurgery, rheumatology, spine surgery, geriatrics, infectious diseases, stroke medicine, family medicine, cardiology, pediatrics, women’s health, urology, and gastroenterology.
For nurses and technicians, programs are available in oncology nursing, radiation technician training, laboratory technician programs, and oncology research and cytoscreener training.
The session, held at the A. M. Kyne Collegiate Resource Center at the William V. S. Tubman High School in Sinkor, Monrovia, provided detailed information on the scholarship programs, including available specializations, eligibility requirements, and application procedures.
Provided by the Merck Foundation in partnership with the Office of the First Lady and the Ministry of Health, these scholarships are a cornerstone of the government’s effort to build an advanced and resilient healthcare system for Liberia.
The fully funded programs, which range from three months to one year, will be conducted both online and on-campus at leading universities in the United Kingdom and India. To be eligible, applicants must be Liberian health practitioners with requisite academic credentials and a formal recommendation from the Office of the First Lady and the Ministry of Health.
The final selection of candidates will be communicated through the MERCK FOUNDATION upon receiving an acceptance letter from the school and a cover recommendation letter from the office of the First Lady and the MOH.
The application process commenced immediately following the forum. Interested and qualified candidates have been requested to submit their updated resumes to the Office of the First Lady.
Upon receipt, they will be added to a dedicated general group to receive centralized guidance and support throughout the application process to their respective universities.
The First Lady’s Office emphasized that this initiative would equip Liberia’s frontline healthcare workers with top-notch training to enable them to provide high-quality care and save lives.
Welcoming the applicants, Mr. Varfee Holmes, Senior Communications Consultant in the Office of the First Lady, expressed the ardent desire of the First Lady to promote quality health care for all citizens of the country and, in her capacity as Maternal Health champion, has vowed to achieve this during her tenure as First Lady.
He mentioned that the First Lady is not just interested in modernizing maternal health faculties but also ensuring that there are qualified nurses and doctors ready to give out quality medical services to public hospital in Liberia.
