Current ProjectsDental Project Med COR established a collaborative effort with the USC School of Dentistry in 2006. We are currently partnering with the USC School of Dentistry to bring more enrichment opportunities to Med-COR students. Over the past three summers, Med-COR students have participated in the USC Dental School Explorers program where students are introduced to a wide variety of fields within dentistry covering such areas as, Orthodontics, Prosthodontics, Sports Medicine, Dental Hygiene, and Pediatric Dentistry. Throughout, their exploration they are able to make a retainer with acrylic, perform tooth fillings with amalgam, learn the anatomy of the teeth, make their own teeth impressions, make a tooth out of composite and perform oral examinations on each other. They also had an opportunity to shadow a dentist in the course of their experience. After students complete the Dental Explorers program they are given an opportunity to practice their skills by working with patients in the USC Oral Health Care Center, which is the USC Dental School faculty practice. In the Oral Health Care Center students are able to help prepare dental instruments, talk to patients about oral health care, assist dental assistants as needed, setup dental trays, and shadow dentist.
Initially, Med-COR students show little interest in dentistry because they hold unpleasant perceptions of dentistry. However, after they are exposed to positive experiences, they alter their perceptions of the field. Pharmacy In 2008 we developed the framework for a collaborative between Med-COR and the USC School of Pharmacy. The objective is to establish a long-range pipeline to deliver students of color to the school of pharmacy. The project will initiate in January, 2009, starting with 10 Med-COR students in the 9th grade. The collaborative is strongly endorsed by Dr. Vanderveen, Dean of the School of Pharmacy and Dr. Walter Cathey, special assistant to the Dean. The project is called The Pharmacy Explorer Program (PEP) and will serve ten 9th grade students starting in 2009. Thereafter, additional students will be added which will include non-Med-COR students in select LAUSD schools. Students in medical magnet high schools will also be included. The PEP project promises to be a major development for increasing diversity in pharmacy schools. Distance Learning This spring, we intend to initiate a pilot program to determine the number of students with computers at home, the number of students and parents interested in participating in this program and to determine our capacity to deliver on the project. This project has enormous potential and once its feasibility is determined, we will seek outside funding support. The College Access Foundation Med-COR is reaching out to establish networks with funding institutions to support expanded service to our students. We were rewarded a grant from the College Access Foundation to provide college scholarships to graduating seniors. In an effort to entice Med-COR alumni to stay in touch with the program we have secured $100,000 in scholarship funds from the College Access Foundation. Our proposal is to award 20 $1,000 scholarships over a 4-year period. We will identify 20 students based on their financial need. These funds are to be used to offset the cost of the student’s individual contribution as established by the university’s financial aid packet. Med-COR Tracking System Finally, Med-COR developed a positive relationship with the California Endowment (TCE). We have secured funding from the TCE to begin the development of our tracking system but more importantly, Med-COR is an active partner in the organized effort to address the issue of diversifying the health professions workforce. This will be a major effort to build local capacity to address this problem and LAUSD and USC will be represented through Med-COR. Med-COR has a system to track high school students but no tracking is possible for our graduates who attend college. There is a critical need for such tracking in order for us to document our effort to be part of diversifying the medical and allied health work force. The grant will allow us to track our graduates through college.The grant will also allow us to track our graduates over a period of 10 years. The goals of the tracking system are multi-layered. The initial benefit of a tracking system is to provide a vehicle for Med-COR graduates to keep in touch and network with peers and health care professionals that work with the program. There are also other key goals that a tracking system will help the program to accomplish. These goals include keeping a detailed accounting of Med-COR alumni that go on to various colleges and universities; inquiries of the various aspects that assist our alumni in staying in the health care career pipeline; discovering various elements of our graduates’ experience that work toward their successful admission into a professional or graduate school; and, finally, the goal of the tracking system will serve as an extension of our program evaluation processes whereby programmatic elements can be improved through alumni experiences and feedback. Developing this tracking system will not only allow us to track Med-COR graduates but graduates of LAUSD magnet schools as well. The potential benefit of the tracking system is enormous.
|
