Future Docs: We Make the News
______
Dance-a-thon raises $52,000 for HIV
Thirteen-year-old Darrell put on a dazzling array of dance moves Saturday in front of onlookers at the Mall of America — but Darrell happens to be in a wheelchair and living with HIV.
On Saturday, University of Minnesota student groups Minnesota's Future Doctors and the Minority Association of Pre-Health Students , in addition to other groups, helped engineer a 12-hour dance-a-thon at the Mall of America to raise money for children affected with HIV. The $52,000 that was raised will help kids attend camp One Heartland, a national non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of children infected with HIV, such as Darrell, and their families .
The event, which began around 10 a.m., consisted of both featured performers with choreographed routines and impromptu dancers who just wanted to help the cause. In addition to Darrell, who delivered a poignant testimonial on top of his performance, 400 other volunteers joined the cause, including former American Idol participant Paris Bennett and actor Jonathan Bennett .
Last year, the event raised $38,000, but the groups were determined to reach $50,000 this year, which they surpassed.
Chemistry sophomore Alex Yue , one of the primary organizers of the event, said about 80 percent of the kids that they raise money for are living in poverty and cannot afford to go to the camp on their own budgets.
Thuy Nguyen-Tran , from Minnesota’s Future Doctors, said the groups really wanted “to see people live healthy lives,” which is what sparked them to become involved. Sophomore biology and physiology student Dame Idossa participated in last year’s event as a dancer, but did the majority of recruiting for the 400 participants this year, about 50 of which were University students.
Idossa recruited the “Half-Pints,” which featured about 25 dancers and their leader, Eboni Poole , a senior at Brown College.
“Anything that’s going to help support [HIV], I’m willing to give my time,” Poole said. “I’m hoping that we are blessed to get the opportunity to perform every year, because we had a blast.”
Sammi Grob , a freshman at Jefferson High School in Bloomington, was one of the non-featured volunteers. Grob and a group of friends dedicated six hours out of their day dancing for the cause. Students from Jefferson were able to raise $3,000. Yue said the groups have plans to expand their involvement on campus to Welcome Week in the fall.
______
Future Doctors on Crossroads with host Sheletta Brundidge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3rF11DIzew______
New Program Preps Future Doctors
The first-year biochemistry student said the tension and unstable government of her native country, Ethiopia, causes dismal access to health care.
"There is one doctor to thousands of people," she said. "We have a lot of people dying from preventable diseases. It's really saddening."
Idossa's one of the 27 students accepted into this year's Minnesota's Future Doctors program.
The two-year-old program was developed by two past University medical students to encourage more minorities, including those who were in foster care and refugee camps in war-torn countries, and others who've experienced homelessness, to enter the medical field.
Idossa said she hopes to go to medical school and help those without adequate health care around the world get the care they need.
Of the 945 students enrolled in the University's medical schools in Duluth and the Twin Cities, 182 are students of color, according to the Academic Health Center.
Underserved and diverse communities in Minnesota were inspiration to launch the program, program director Jo Peterson said.
She added that students' experiences were a factor in their selection.
"A number of students come from foster care - a lot of young people who have been through war situations and then had to relocate to the United States as very young children," she said.
The privately funded program accepted students from colleges and universities across the state and costs $500,000 a year to run.
Lucas Reece, a Guyanese University student selected to the three-summer program, said the patient-doctor ratio is generally unbalanced and he hopes to change that.
"There are more ethnic patients than ethnic doctors," he said.
Reece's experience as a camp counselor in urban Philadelphia last summer inspired him to continue working with inner-city communities after graduating medical school.
"The diversity of (doctors) should reflect the population," he said. "Otherwise, you start to see a specific image of how a doctor should look."
Those who applied for the program needed to be undergraduate first-year students with an interest in science and medicine.
The program takes place at both the University's Medical School and the Mayo medical school in Rochester.
Students will shadow doctors, visit hospitals and clinics, research case studies and do community service.
Peterson said she hopes half the students attend medical school, but encourages them to pursue careers of their choice.
"If they found something else through their travels that they're more interested in," she said, "I want them to pursue that."
______
Minnesota's Future Doctors Program Selects Students for Program's Second Year
(April 7, 2008) -- Twenty-seven highly talented, hardworking students were recently selected for the Minnesota’s Future Doctors program, a program created by the University of Minnesota Medical School and the Mayo Medical School that aims to increase minority, immigrant, and rural physicians.
Designed to generate a pipeline of future doctors for the state, Minnesota’s Future Doctors was developed in response to a concern that practicing physicians and medical school students do not reflect the diversity of Minnesota communities. Two University of Minnesota Medical School students noticed this disparity in their classrooms and initiated the Minnesota’s Future Doctors program to address this inequality.
Now in its second year, the program aims to equip high-potential minority and disadvantaged students with the skills necessary to become successful undergraduate students, in turn making them strong applicants for medical school.
“These fantastic young people are the whole package, the type of student we want and need in our medical schools if we are to prepare the next generation of physicians who can relate to the increasingly diverse population in our state,” said Jo Peterson, Ph.D., director of the program.
All participants have completed their freshman year at a Minnesota college, have demonstrated exceptional academic aptitude, and were highly recommended by faculty members. The students will spend six weeks this summer at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview, the Mayo Clinic, and Duluth Hospital learning about clinical care and research. Program participants will create electronic portfolios, tour the campuses, take biology courses, and learn what it means to serve different ethnic populations as a physician by University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic professionals.
The same cohort of students will return to the program each summer for three years to further develop their portfolios, prepare for the MCAT exam, and refine their medical school applications and interview techniques. The ultimate goal of the program is not only to prepare exceptional medical school applicants, but to encourage these students to remain in Minnesota.
The students represent minority, rural, and immigrant groups, as well as economically disadvantaged and first-generation college students. Patient consumer studies find that persons of color and immigrants prefer doctors who share their language, culture, and religion. Peterson notes that the students’ personal experiences will allow them to relate to patients of similar backgrounds and be role models in their communities.
_____
Homeroom University Of Minnesota / Med school buddies innovate to motivate
New program puts students of color, or low income, or from outstate on a track to become Minnesota Future Doctors
BY PAUL TOSTO Pioneer Press Gareth Forde and Matt Fitzpatrick met on the first day of medical school at the University of Minnesota and began talking almost immediately about how to bring better health care to people of color and low-income communities.
Then, their talk turned to action. The best way, they thought, to meet the disparities in health care was to train more students as doctors and then have them return to their neighborhoods and hometowns. Even with the immense pressures of medical school and life (Forde has two small children), they found time and energy to pull together a plan and line up support, not just at the U but at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
"We thought we needed to create a pipeline of students from underrepresented groups," said Forde. That meant not only students of color but people from rural and low-income areas. "What students were lacking was something that had continuity, that took them from the beginning and delivered them beyond the doorsteps of medicine."
The payoff for those efforts came earlier this year when the first class of 23 college students entered the Minnesota Future Doctors program. The students, all undergrads interested in becoming doctors and serving Minnesota, spent six weeks this summer learning about medical school and being mentored. They'll have the chance to spend two more summers getting ready to apply to medical school, laying the groundwork for their future success.
Forde, 32, and Fitzpatrick, 34, now fourth-year medical school students, were crucial to the program's birth, officials said. Forde, who had also helped organize a 2005 conference on health disparities, won a student leadership award from the U in the spring. "We started talking about the need for tuition (aid) and mentorship," Fitzpatrick recalled. "We kind of sat down and came up with the idea of trying to develop a pipeline program ... the hope was to get college students who are fully capable of becoming great physicians but who don't have the guidance." Both men took different paths to reach similar conclusions.
Forde, a Floridian, lived three years in Mississippi, where the health needs of people far outstripped the system's ability to help. Fitzpatrick had worked for two years in poor areas of the Middle East, writing grant proposals and handling other nonmedical duties for health clinics.
"Having leaders in our community, physicians and others, is essential for young people. Creating a cadre of doctors that look like the real faces of Minnesotans is essential," said Jo Peterson, who oversees the Minnesota Future Doctors program. "I haven't ever met two people who had such a strong sense of right and wrong," she said of Forde and Fitzpatrick. "They knew that Minnesota needed to grow its own medical students who reflect the real Minnesota - minorities, immigrants, rural, economically challenged families." The pair, she said, knocked on the doors of top administrators at the Mayo and U medical schools.
"They stayed on top of their request until they felt that it received the proper attention. They continue to stay on top of the day-to-day runnings of the program and always offer excellent, critical insight on how the program should run, who should be accepted into the program and more." Short-term, the goal is to see the first group of 23 all matriculate into medical school, said Forde. Ultimately, Fitzpatrick said, the program will be judged by how many physicians it brings to underserved areas. Looking back, it would have been easy to let the idea end at a passionate conversation. "At some point," Forde said, "you're going to realize you're waiting forever to make a difference. Let's do it now. The problem is now." .