Assisting Underrepresented Students and Underserved Communities
- Promoting Health Careers to K-12
- Rural Health Education Scholarship
- Summer Pre-Medical Academy
- HealthMATCH
- Rural Community-Based Education
Promoting Health Careers to K-12
The Health Sciences Center has focused on fostering the goal of college and the opportunities available in health care to students K-12. Most of these efforts are through programs housed in the TTUHSC Office of Rural and Community Health and the Office of Border Health.
From the Office of Rural and Community Health, programs that focus on promoting health careers to underserved students include:
- West Texas AHEC Program
- Rural Health Education Scholarship
- Rural Health Summer Academy
- Summer Pre-Medical Academy Sponsorship
From the Office of Border Health in El Paso, programs that focus on promoting health careers to undeserved students include:
- Health Education Training Center Alliance of Texas
- Hispanic Center of Excellence
- Health Career Opportunities Program (newly funded)
These programs create a pipeline where young West Texans have multiple health careers promotion touches throughout their primary and secondary education careers. The support continues with financial assistance through their college and post-graduate health professions training.
Rural Health Education Scholarship
The purpose of the scholarship program is to assist rural students in pursuing their aspirations to become health care providers and return to rural communities to practice. The long term goal of this program is to alleviate the health care provider shortage across rural West Texas. The scholarship program began in Fall 2002.
There are between 55 to 70 students involved in the Rural Health Education Scholarship program each year.
Summer Pre-Medical Academy
The Summer Premedical Academy (SPA) is a six-week intensive preparatory MCAT experience. The primary function of the Summer Premedical Academy is to provide the students with formal MCAT training. But, the program also includes other vital elements such as exposure to community and volunteer activities, clinical rotations with physicians, oral and written communication skills essential for the interviewing process, mock interviews, and gross anatomy training. The Summer Premedical Academy, which began in 1999, allows economically disadvantaged students that are primarily minorities an excellent opportunity to pursue a career in medicine. The Summer Premedical Academy is conducted between mid-May through June.
HealthMATCH
The purpose for HealthMATCH is to provide a forum for rural communities that are looking for health care providers to meet with medical residents and health professions students who are seeking employment opportunities. HealthMATCH is held four times a year, once on each TTUHSC campus.
The event is targeted to communities that have limited opportunities and resources to recruit physicians and other health professionals to their towns. Most are in federally designated Health Professional Shortage Areas. HealthMATCH affords these communities the opportunity to spend time with medical residents, medical and physician assistant students.