Six weeks of intensive study recently culminated June 19 with a poster presentation by 12 undergraduate pre-health students at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine (MCOM).  The students — 11 from USF and one Tampa native currently enrolled at Smith College — participated in the 2015 Pre-Health Scholars Program (PSP) offered by the MCOM Office of Student Diversity and Enrichment (OSDE) and the USF Area Health Education Center (AHEC).

PSP is a multi-year academic enrichment and career exploration program for pre-health students that provides support and services to students as they move through their undergraduate experience. Each year new academic enrichment and experiential learning opportunities are added.

Incoming undergraduate students in the Pre-Health Scholars Program 2015, pictured here, will receive academic enrichment, experiential opportunities and ongoing mentoring as they continue to pursue health career paths.

“Recent participants have earned paid research positions, internships and work experiences while still undergraduates.” said OSDE Director Shirley Smith. “This year alone, some of our previous students got accepted to medical school as well as podiatry, DPT, and MPH programs.  Another recent graduate is serving areas of need with AmeriCorps.”

Neil Manimala, a fourth-year medical student helped judge the scholarly posters.

“As a current student, this gives me great confidence in the next generation of health professionals. The presentations were fantastic, and really got to the heart of some of the issues at the core of our practice,” Manimala said.  “These types of (pre-health) programs are critical.”

Now in its 12th year, PSP four years ago began an early intervention model providing intensive support and resources to freshmen, sophmore and junior undergraduates interested in a health career path, rather than waiting until the senior or post-undergraduate years.

“These students put in a lot of work, and we love seeing what they are able to accomplish,” said Program Coordinator Kevin Casey.

Paul Al Francois is a rising USF junior pursuing a biomedical sciences degree with minors in public health and biomedical physics. His poster addressed the ethical dilemma of keeping a patient alive despite the patient’s own intentions suggesting otherwise.

This summer, the 12 new PSP students were mentored by rising second-year medical students Ricardo Rendel, Chris Kaul, and Peeraya Sawangkum.  They worked eight hours a day, five days a week, becoming acquainted with the diverse fields within the health sciences, learning basic science concepts, and shadowing health science professionals in academic and clinical settings.  They also worked on developing critical reasoning skills in a class on the biomedical ethics of death and dying taught by MCOM staff member Jamie Cooper.

The capstone experience of the class was the poster presentation – with topics ranging from end-of-life treatment and quality of life to medical aspects of persistent vegetative state to advance directives.

The atmosphere at the Friday event was electric as the students enthusiastically presented their posters to a diverse audience including medical students, other undergraduates, PSP alumni, USF Health staff, parents, guests, and even Dr. Bryan Bognar, vice dean of Educational Affairs at MCOM.

“Overall, I was incredibly impressed, not only with the presentation skills of these young men and women, but also with their deep understanding of the content,” Dr. Bognar said. “The topic areas that they chose to address would be challenging for an experienced clinician.”

Barbara Sanchez, a rising USF Honors College sophmore majoring in exercise science, explains her poster entitled “Does Having a DNR Order Mean You Would Not Be Treated?”

Photos by Rebekah Wright, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine photographer

Like students in most schools, a group of elementary students in East Tampa started classes last month excited about the year ahead.

But this group is a little different. Uniforms are scrubs. Guest speakers are doctors, nurses, and the like. And field trips will be to area laboratories and maybe hospitals.

This group is the inaugural class for the King’s Kids Academy of Health Sciences, a new charter school putting an emphasis on health sciences and aiming to build a pipeline for healthcare professionals who will help ease the shortage of healthcare providers, especially minority professionals.

King’s Kids Academy of Health Sciences (KKAHS) earned approval to open from the School Board of Hillsborough County earlier this year. The school is targeting underserved low-income school-age students of the East Tampa area.

In designing its extensive curriculum that includes modules for learning about health and sciences and inspiring students to consider health careers, KKAHS has connected with many community health groups, including USF Health. Lennox Hoyte, MD, associate professor in USF’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Morsani College of Medicine, is acting as a mentor to the program, and sees the school as a good way to help ease the shortage in healthcare providers.

“It is important for these young kids to see a pathway for becoming healthcare professionals,” Dr. Hoyte said. “And starting early – demonstrating, as well as experiencing, aspects of health careers – is an ideal model for keeping that pathway open.  There is a dramatic shortage of healthcare professionals, especially minority healthcare professionals. So a curriculum like this can provide a high payoff for the community, the region, and the state, as well as the individual.”

In addition to Dr. Hoyte, pre-med students, medical students and faculty can be mentors and /or tutors, plugging into the school as guest speakers, helping on career days, offering support for various science and health projects, etc. As the school grows (it is starting with kindergarten, first and second grades only), the partnership has the potential to expand, as well.

Dr. Lennox Hoyte

“We are very excited to connect with USF Health and see USF students come in and work with our children,” said Maria Stroud, director of KKAHS.  “It is so important to have them there to instill in our kindergartners, first-, second- and third-graders the message that they can define who they will be, even at this young age, and say to them ‘hey, you can start building on this now.’ That’s a magnificent message.”

Also helping bridge the charter school with USF is Hiram Green, director of Community Engagement, who serves on the KKAHS board of directors.

Hiram Green

“As we work to transform healthcare, it is important for us to connect with our various communities and to use our intellectual capital to make them better,” Green said. “A school such as this could help implement a reversal of debilitating conditions, such as obesity, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, infant mortality, and other chronic diseases that continue to plague our community. Starting with these children, we have an opportunity to put in their minds early, the necessity for good nutrition and the knowledge of science, things they will need in the future, whether they go into healthcare fields or not. Just for the betterment of themselves.”

For more information about the free, public school, and to enroll your child (KKAHS is still accepting students), visit King’s Kids Academy of Health Sciences web site.

Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications