UMass Chan program gives high schoolers early exposure to health careers
Photo I Courtesy of UMass Chan
(From left) Teaching Assistant Faith Bolques; Teaching Assistant Benedicta Agyemang-Brantuo; Dr. Cherise Hamblin; Hamblin’s daughter, Violet Murphy; Karisa Augustine, director of pipeline programs for Patients R Waiting; Angielance Gbozee, Pipeline Dreams program director; Teaching Assistant Tiernan O’Neal; and Teaching Assistant Darlene Polanco, at the opening ceremony for Pipeline Dreams
UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester has launched an educational program providing high school students early exposure to the career fields of health, science, and racial health disparities research.
The Pipeline Dreams program is an initiative of Patients R Waiting, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit working to increase representation of minority physicians. The nonprofit was founded by Dr. Cherise Hamblin, UMass Chan assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology. It is sponsored by Worcester provider UMass Memorial Health, the Greater Worcester Community Foundation, and the Schwartz Charitable Foundation in Worcester.
UMass Chan welcomed its first class of 33 juniors and seniors from 11 Massachusetts high schools on Jan. 15, marking the first cohort of Pipeline Dreams students at the medical school, according to a Friday press release from UMass Chan.
“There are all these resources here at UMass Chan and in the Worcester area. We produce doctors, nurses, and scientists. Our focus in this program is to activate these students in the local community, remind them that they belong here and have something to contribute, and then follow through to help them speak the language of medicine and science,” Hamblin said in the release.
Over the next 12 weeks, program participants will engage in in-person and virtual meetings with scientists, clinicians, and undergraduates to learn more about careers in medicine, research and public health. Once the program ends, Patients R Waiting will provide longitudinal support to the class as they transition into college.
“We want to bring in more learners from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine and support them throughout their journey so that they can not only survive but thrive. We aspire to also retain them so that when they are done with their training they can be inspired to join us right here in Worcester, becoming Worcester’s future doctors, nurses, researchers, educators, and leaders,” Dr. Crista Johnson-Agbakwu, professor of obstetrics and gynecology as well as population and quantitative health sciences and executive director of the UMass Chan Collaborative in Health Equity, said in the release.
The program is being managed by the UMass Chan Collaborative in Health Equity aimed at promoting health equity amongst vulnerable, underserved, and historically marginalized populations, according to the collaborative’s website. Hamblin serves as the director of the collaborative’s Underrepresented in Medicine Community Workforce Development and Capacity building.
Mica Kanner-Mascolo is a staff writer at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the healthcare and diversity, equity, and inclusion industries.
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