Medical students training at Baltimore’s Sinai Hospital will get some of their tuition covered by a $10 million gift, the latest local philanthropic grant aimed at offsetting the hefty cost of becoming a doctor.

Bloomberg Philanthropies said in July it was awarding a $1 billion grant to Johns Hopkins University so it could offer free tuition to medical school students beginning this fall.

The grant to LifeBridge Health, the parent company of Sinai, specifically aims to increase the number of local primary care doctors. The system launched a program last year for students from George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences to train at Sinai.

The donation will be used to create an endowment fund called Sinai’s Regional Medical Campus for the clinical training program for third- and fourth-year medical students. The program focuses on how to care for patients from underserved communities who often have more health needs.

The gift is the LifeBridge system’s largest ever and comes from Ellen Wasserman, an emeritus member of the LifeBridge Health board. She’s previously given the system donations aimed at improving children’s health. The new grant brings her total donations to LifeBridge to $24 million.

“We are so grateful to Ellen Wasserman for this transformational gift to invest in the education of future physicians, who we hope will go on to practice in our communities,” said Neil Meltzer, president and CEO of LifeBridge Health, in a statement. “Ellen trained as a social worker and truly understands the challenges facing so many of our patients.”

There are currently 15 George Washington students training at Sinai, but 60 are expected over the next two years. Each will receive $10,000 in tuition scholarships a year. George Washington’s medical school tuition is about $63,000 annually.

The students will rotate through specialties including family and internal medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, obstetrics/gynecology and others.

Sinai also offers clinical rotations for medical students from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and others. And previous students received some tuition assistance from other philanthropic donors.

Tuition costs have become a significant barrier for students, particularly those from lower-income households, and contributed to a shortfall of doctors nationwide.

The average cost of yearly tuition and fees nationally exceeds $41,000 for in-state students at public medical schools and $58,000 for out-of-state students. Private medical schools, such as Hopkins, average $60,000, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Many medical students take on significant debt. The median owed nationally upon graduation in 2022 was $200,000, which has steered some to higher-paying specialties rather than primary care, particularly in underserved areas.

The donation “will support our students in this special learning environment and community-focused program,” said Dr. Scott Krugman, a pediatrician and senior associate dean for the George Washington program at Sinai.

“Current RMC students have shared how much they value the individualized, hands-on education and training they are receiving at Sinai, as well as connections they are able to build with their patients and our greater community.”