Meet Julia Cazabon: First to Attend Medical School for Free on the LSU Health New Orleans Beer Scholarship

Leveraging Gifts for Good

Julia Cazabon, a medical student at LSU Health New Orleans, is the first to receive full support through the Marcia and Billy Beer Endowed Scholarship Fund to attend all four years of medical school for free, thanks to a historic $7.5 million leadership gift—the largest ever to the LSU Health New Orleans Foundation.

“As the weeks go by, I’ve come to realize my scholarship is not a reward—it’s an invitation to aim higher and do more and try to earn it every day,” Cazabon said. “It has made me a much better student, more fiercely committed to excelling and helping others.”

Cazabon learned the value of service at home. Growing up in a large Cuban family just outside New Orleans, she watched her dad, a family medicine physician who earned his medical degree at LSU Health Shreveport, come home from serving his Ochsner primary care patients to soon be checking on members of the Cuban community. Then, after pushing his daughter to apply to LSU, he suffered a massive heart attack.

“It gave me an entirely new perspective on medicine—what it really ends up being about,” Cazabon said. “It made me want to be a physician who understands people’s pain, and there’s no place I’d rather study medicine than at LSU Health New Orleans. I always felt the LSU physicians were like my neighbors, like people I’d met before, even if I hadn’t.”

“Despite all the time and commitment it takes to be a medical student, Julia continues to volunteer and give her all for the New Orleans Women & Children’s Shelter. Thanks to LSU Health New Orleans and the Beer scholarship, she is going to be an amazing doctor because she truly loves caring for people.”

Dawn Bradley-Fletcher, CEO, New Orleans Women & Children’s Shelter