Nearly 250 students graduated from summer enrichment programs offered by the Aetna Health Professions Partnership Initiative (HPPI) at UConn Health last week.
The students, ranging in age from adolescent to young adult, took part in offerings designed to introduce them to, engage them in, and prepare them for the scholastic track needed to pursue careers in medicine, dentistry, research, nursing, pharmacy, and other health fields. The program seeks to create an educational pipeline for students from populations that historically are underrepresented in these disciplines.
“I learned that knowledge of both medicine and culture are intertwined in providing the best care, and that there is no substitute for empathy,” says Hamza Zakir, a UConn undergraduate who took part in the Health Disparities Clinical Summer Research Fellowship Program. “But most importantly, the program helped motivate me from within. It helped me really believe that I can make the difference. For that I can’t be more thankful.”
Zakir worked with Akorfa Adobor, a junior at Quinnipiac University, this summer, producing the poster presentation “Engaging Patients in the On-Site Training and Assessment of MyCare Patient Portal: Internal Medicine.”
Adobor says her experience “exposed me to the realities of modern health care, as well as the complexity of medicine. The scientific part, although largely emphasized, is only part of the picture. A good physician must be a humanitarian and an excellent communicator. Medicine is an art form that I hope to someday practice.”
The Aetna Foundation, a longtime supporter of the Health Career Opportunity Programs (HCOP) at UConn Health, recently awarded an additional $80,000 to expand the Health Disparities Clinical Summer Research Fellowship Program.
Another health disparities fellow, Rebecca Zapf-Pedraza, says shadowing physicians showed her income is no barrier to being able to deliver top-quality care to all patients.
“I learned ways in which physicians impact the lives of their patients outside of the office, such as prescribing vegetables and food coupons as well as making sure DCF is properly caring for the children it protects, and am now even more driven to pursue an M.D./Ph.D.,” says Zapf-Pedraza, who plans to graduate from Central Connecticut State University in December with a biology degree.
That was one of 10 summer enrichment programs that concluded Friday:
- Great Explorations (27 middle school students)
- Jumpstart 9 (36 incoming high school students)
- Jumpstart 10 (31 rising high school sophomores)
- Junior Doctors Academy (22 rising high school juniors)
- Senior Doctors Academy (10 rising high school seniors)
- High School Student Research Apprentice Program (10 high school students)
- Bridge/Pre-college Academic Enrichment Program (28 incoming undergrads)
- College Enrichment Program (2 undergraduates)
- Medical/Dental Preparatory Programs (48 undergraduates)
- Summer Research Fellowship Program (14 undergraduates)
- Health Disparities Clinical Summer Research Fellowship Program (19 undergraduates)
The Summer Research Fellowship Program is what enabled Oluwatoyin Akinnusotu, a UConn undergraduate going into his senior year, to spend this summer working in the neuropeptide laboratory of professors Elizabeth Eipper and Richard Mains.
“I was able to create a hypothesis, test it out with data, and see what my conclusion was,” Akinnusotu says. “I really liked the problem-solving aspect of the entire process in my research. And it’s helped me build my resume and my application. Research is a very important aspect of the medical school application. [This fellowship] also helped me form connections here at UConn Health.”
The first-generation American, son of Nigerian parents, aspires to be a neurosurgeon, and is considering UConn for medical school.
“This type of research exposure is so crucial to our mission,” says Dr. Marja Hurley, associate dean for Health Career Opportunity Programs and Aetna HPPI founding director. “We are grateful to the Aetna Foundation and all our funding sources for their continued support.”
Other funding sources include:
- Connecticut Collegiate Awareness and Preparation Program, Office of Higher Education
- Connecticut State Legislative Fund
- The Hartford
- William and Alice Mortensen Foundation
- John and Valerie Rowe Health Professions Scholars Program
- UConn Foundation, Friends of the Department of Health Career Opportunity Programs
- UConn Health
Hurley says the Health Career Opportunity Programs have sent more than 400 participants to medical school, dental school, graduate school, or other health professional schools.
