Anatomy Outreach: Long‐term Investment in the Future of Medicine

Abstract

SUNY Downstate Medical Center has one of the most diverse student bodies in the country, yet medicine today does not reflect this ethnic diversity. To ensure that underrepresented students receive exposure to the allied health fields, the Downstate Health Professions Recruitment and Exposure Program (HPREP) recruits 30 minority high school students from Brooklyn to attend lectures on physiology, perform anatomical dissections, and learn clinical skills, all facilitated by medical students. A five question pre‐ and posttest evaluating the different activities is given at every session to quantify student learning. The average pretest score was 27.33% (STD=1.711), rising to 80.74% in the posttest (STD=1.369), with an average improvement of 58.5%. The perceived value of the program as a critical confidence builder for students' long‐term career goals is demonstrated by students' active engagement and pertinent questions. The strength of the education outreach program lies with medical students leading the program using anatomy as the driver. The success of this anatomy outreach program lies not only in the short‐term gains for individual students but, more importantly, in its benefit to society in approximately a decade when the young students complete their educations and bring greater diversity to the allied health professions.