Exceeding Expectations: Students Underrepresented in Medicine at University of Utah Health

Abstract

Background and Objectives: The University of Utah (UU) serves an increasingly diverse state and houses the only public medical school, dental school, and college of pharmacy in the state. Utah’s diversity in the health professions lags behind the diversity of its general population, and the nation. Methods: The Health Sciences Learning, Engagement, Achievement, and Progress (HS-LEAP) Program is a 4-year undergraduate pipeline program intended to increase racial and ethnic diversity in the health professions, specifically focused on students underrepresented in medicine (URM). Each student self-identified and submitted demographics at the time of enrollment. We followed students to successful engagement in their profession of choice; we compared graduation and postgraduation outcomes to non-HS-LEAP students at UU from 2005-2016. Results: Almost 80% of HS-LEAP students are from communities underrepresented in medicine: 41% Latinx, 28% Asian, 7% Black, 2% American Indian/Alaskan Native, and 1% Pacific Islander. HS-LEAP students had lower ACT scores upon undergraduate enrollment, higher grade point averages in their first semester of college, higher fall-to-fall first-year retention rates, and higher 6-year graduation rates when compared to non-HS-LEAP UU students. Students who completed HS-LEAP attended graduate school at twice the rate of students who participated in HS-LEAP, the majority in the health professions. Conclusions: The HS-LEAP program is associated with increased URM success in undergraduate programs and elevated participation in graduate programs in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, physician assistant, nursing, and public health. Similar programs, with continuous assessment and evaluation, could be adopted in other locations to improve the representation of these groups in health professions.

Impact of the Bronx Community Health Leaders Program for Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Prehealth Students

“…1 These results are comparable or better than outcomes from similar pathway programs in advancing students to graduate programs and medical school acceptance. 15 , 23 Eleven BxCHL alumni have obtained their medical degree and the majority will be training in primary residency programs. The BxCHL model was successfully replicated for another program.…”

“…In addition, exposure to near-peer mentors is known to contribute to the success of socioeconomically disadvantaged and URM students pursuing health care careers. 9 , 15 Also, programs that expose students to health care environments have a positive impact on their decision to pursue health care careers. 20–22 …”

“…7 , 14 Most programs that offer these opportunities are longitudinally constrained by administrative costs and support for students. 15 , 16 …”

Key Factors in Designing the Health System–Community Pathways Program for African American/Black Children and Young Adults

“…However, other programs suggested that the admission requirements needed to be reexamined to ensure that the existing criteria were not unintentionally screening out otherwise qualified students (NIGMS, 2021). Pathways program admission personnel need to be educated just as university admission committees are on implicit bias; they need to implement admission practices that reduce biases and have members who identify as underrepresented (* Bliss et al, 2020;NIGMS, 2021). The undergraduate application process had a variety of metrics including (but not limited to) the candidate's research knowledge, letters of recommendations, grade point average (GPA), and standardized test scores.…”

“…Senior mentors are those who have significantly more experience in their field and use this experience to mentor those who are not as far along in their specialty. A couple of pathways programs for undergraduate students used peer mentorship (Apprey et al, 2014;*Bliss et al, 2020), while other programs, including those for school-aged children, used near-peer mentorship as a modality (Knowledge Is Power Program Public Charter Schools [KIPP], undated; University of Maryland, Baltimore County [UMBC], undated). In tiered mentorship structures, there are mentors at multiple levels, as well as near-peer and senior mentors.…”