Our Story

Dr. Alyx Porter Umphrey comes from a family where education is prioritized, hard work is the expectation, and social responsibility and justice are the rent you pay for being alive.  She was awarded a Presidential Scholarship to attend Spelman College where her tuition, room and board were covered, allowing her to enter medical school without debt. Imagine her surprise at the age of 21 upon learning that in order to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor it would cost approximately $50,000 per year for the next four years.  She committed to repay the interest laden loans required for the anticipated 30 year length of her career, prior to starting her first day of medical school.  Options included accepting a specialty without experience with the promise of working in a rural or underserved area for four years after residency. Another option was to join the military and repay the government with her time after graduation. None of these were options that she was willing to accept prior to beginning the journey.

By the age of 25, Dr. Porter Umphrey was over $200,000 in educational debt.

This debt was a mixture of loans with various interest rates.  They represented a burden so heavy that it affected every decision she made.  She wanted to pursue neurology, a specialty that didn’t include a diverse representation at that time.  Nor, did it allow loan forgiveness. She recognized she’d be taking a risk by pursuing her passion and incurring more debt.  Over the following five postgraduate years as she was working to become a neuro oncologist, she had to defer loan repayment. This happened because as a physician in training, she did not earn enough income to make the payments.  This not only presented significant financial hardship, it also resulted in ballooning debt. By the time she earned her first paycheck as a neuro oncologist, she owed nearly a quarter of a million dollars.. She had also married another physician, Dr. Gregory Umphrey, a Howard University College of Medicine  graduate, who also owed upwards of $180,000 in medical school debt.

Dr. Umphrey was a competitive gymnast whose talent and academic achievements afforded him a full scholarship for undergraduate education at UCLA.  The son of teachers, Dr. Umphrey’s family culture was one with a foundation based in education and a postgraduate degree was expected. While enrolled at Howard University College of Medicine, he quickly emerged as a leader receiving high honors in multiple subspecialties.  He graduated as a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, an exclusive national medical honors society with little diversity amongst it’s members. He was recruited by one of the top residency programs in the country and ultimately graduated after becoming chief resident.

The Umphrey’s quickly learned that the debt was staggering, even with a two physician household.  The student loans were far more than their mortgage. It quickly became an unwanted third party in their marriage. They consciously never bought into living a “physician lifestyle”.  They were living the real life of being married to medicine and prioritized becoming debt free over materialism. Eight years later, their medical school loans were paid off.  

Following loan repayment, Dr. Porter Umphrey developed a scholarship at her alma mater, Spelman College.  Her goal was to give the gift of freedom from undergraduate indebtedness to other young women who dream of pursuing a career in medicine.  In 2017 the first Alyx B. Porter Umphrey MD scholarship was awarded. In 2018, the Umphrey’s decided to address the disparities in medical school matriculants based on racial and ethnic backgrounds.  They dreamed of how they could make a large-scale impact. With the priority of elevating medicine through closing the gap of financial inequity of medical education, in 2019 ElevateMeD was born.