Press Release

Cal Lutheran Student Receives $10,000 Vesper Society Grant

San Francisco, August 4, 2005 — California Lutheran University student Doug Sherlock is the recipient of the Vesper Society’s 2005 Robert B. Cummings Internship grant. The grant is awarded to a person of faith at the start of their career.

Sherlock, a 21-year-old resident of Sonora, will receive a $10,000 stipend over the next two years.  He will use the money to supplement his internship at the recently opened Sutter Delta Medical Center Urgent Care Clinic in Antioch.

Sherlock’s internship will examine the role of urgent care clinics in relieving hospital emergency rooms from providing routine medical care. More than 60,000 residents in the region lack health insurance. More than 90% of patients who enter the ER at nearby Sutter Delta Medical Center do not require emergency care.

“Urgent care clinics are a valuable routing mechanism to help preserve services at hospital ERs, and they need to be studied,” says Sherlock, who was selected by a Cal Lutheran faculty review committee for the internship. In addition to his schoolwork, Sherlock has served in a variety of volunteer positions throughout California.

Upon graduation from Cal Lutheran in May 2006, Sherlock hopes to attend medical school at the University of California, San Francisco.

Established in 2000, the Cummings Fellowship is named after Vesper Society founder Robert B. Cummings. It is awarded in conjunction with California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Based in San Francisco, Vesper Society funds a number of faith-based healthcare and social service initiatives in the Bay Area and overseas.