Two generous grants from the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation will help fund an ongoing youth development project at WMed and an effort by medical students to provide vaccine education and outreach to communities of color in Kalamazoo.
The grants were awarded in January to Cheryl Dickson, MD, MPH, the medical school’s associate dean for Health Equity and Community Affairs for an expansion of the Early Introduction to Health Careers (EIH) program at WMed, a new youth development and outreach program for student athletes, and Vaccine Community Team Champions.
“The Foundation has always been very good to us and with these latest initiatives, they care deeply about what we are doing and who we are serving through both efforts,” Dr. Dickson said.
The expansion of the EIH program is a multi-layered effort that is part of a larger youth development project being led by Dr. Dickson and Donovan Roy, EdD, the medical school’s assistant dean for Diversity and Inclusiveness.
A part of the youth development project involves the creation of a new pilot initiative – the Health Careers Pathway Program (HCPP) – that Dr. Dickson is launching later this year in collaboration with Kalamazoo College, The Kalamazoo Promise, and Western Michigan University.
HCPP will serve as a launchpad for underrepresented high schoolers from Kalamazoo County who will take part in a six-week summer program where they will gain valuable exposure to healthcare careers. They will also have the opportunity to earn college credit and jumpstart their journey as an aspiring healthcare professional.
“We really want to promote that pathway to success,” Dr. Dickson said. “We have to do it together and we’re doing it for the students. Evidence shows that these types of programs over the years do make a difference for students by helping to foster their future success.”
In addition to the HCPP pilot initiative, Dr. Dickson said she is planning to create special sessions for juniors and seniors from Kalamazoo Public Schools who are alumni of the medical school’s EIH 2 program. EIH 2 is a longitudinal program that began in 2014 for 10th graders from KPS and is the flagship pipeline program at WMed.
Another part of the youth development project is the 2021 High School and College Student-Athlete Medicine and Healthcare Career Conference, a virtual event being spearheaded by Dr. Roy that will be held at WMed in June.
Dr. Roy said the conference, which is scheduled for June 2-3, 2021, will be aimed at student athletes, ranging learners entering the eighth grade to learners entering their final year of college.
The event is part of a collaboration with the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and Dr. Roy said he is working to include students from WMU, K-College and Kalamazoo Valley Community College, as well as the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, Grand Valley State University, the University of Nebraska, and the University of Miami, among other institutions. Dr. Dickson said the conference will serve to bring a national focus to the medical school.
“The conference will really focus on building the social capital that will support the students as they’re making decisions to go into a healthcare profession and provide them with resources such as career pathway programs, mentors, and the opportunity to engage with former student athletes who are now working in the healthcare fields,” Dr. Roy said.
He said middle school and high school students who attend the conference will get the chance to learn about what pre-professional programs are available at different institutions and summer programs they can be a part of to further immerse themselves in science and math.
College students, meanwhile, will learn more at the conference about what it takes to get into medical school and the importance of a gaining a strong foundation in science, research, and community service during their undergraduate studies before pursuing a MD degree.
As a spin-off from the conference, Dr. Roy said he plans to offer virtual monthly engagement sessions for middle school and high school students where they will get a chance to interact with a healthcare professional who is a former student-athlete. The events will serve as a platform for the former student-athlete to discuss their transition from sports to healthcare, the importance of research, how to study while traveling as an athlete, and how to adapt a team mentality into the pursuit of a medical career.
Dr. Roy then wants to expand the effort to include SAT and MCAT prep courses for students, which he said is part of “the intangible aesthetics of going into medicine.”
“This is a way for us to look at how to address underrepresentation in medicine,” Dr. Roy said. “This is an old problem and to truly address it we need to think about new solutions.”
Meanwhile, the second grant from the Foundation will support Vaccine Community Team Champions, which is a collaboration between WMed, the Kalamazoo County Health Department, and three organizations from the Kalamazoo community – El Concilio, H.O.P.E. Through Navigation, and Mothers of Hope.
Dr. Dickson said WMed students are working with the three grassroots organizations to create culturally responsive messaging aimed at providing education about the COVID-19 vaccine and addressing hesitancy among many in the Black and Hispanic communities to receive the vaccine.
“This work is going to help the students be better providers in the future as physicians and they will learn what it means to be able to communicate more effectively with patients from diverse backgrounds who might not have as much trust in the healthcare system,” Dr. Dickson said. “That’s really what will help in the improvement of health outcomes.”