YSTP & CAMP
Pritzker Expands its Repertoire of Pipeline Programs
By Bernadette Steele, Multicultural Affairs Coordinator
Bernadette Steele
This summer the Pritzker School of Medicine demonstrated its commitment to increasing diversity in medicine by offering the Young Scientist Training Program (YSTP) for high school students and by launching the Chicago Academic Medicine Program (CAMP), a new program for underrepresented minority college students. Both programs featured academically high achieving students and were organized by Pritzker’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, led by Dr. William A. McDade, Associate Dean for Multicultural Affairs and Rosita Ragin, Assistant Dean for Multicultural Affairs.
For the fourth consecutive summer, YSTP, a ten-week program, selected nine minority high school students and paired each participant with a faculty member whose research interests matched the students’ interests. The students were mentored in the labs and conducted basic or clinical research in the areas of diabetes, obesity, ovarian cancer, bowel disease, acute kidney injury, and kidney disorders.
Led by Drs. McDade and Lisa Abston, the students attended weekly cluster group meetings in which they discussed their research progress and were counseled about how to pursue a career in biomedical science. At the end of the program, YSTP students attended the annual National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) Step-Up Summer Research Symposium in Anaheim, California where they delivered oral presentations and presented posters about their respective research projects.
YSTP and CAMP participants with Pritzker students, Dr. William McDade, Rosita Ragin, and Bernadette Steele
In this its inaugural summer, CAMP, a summer program for rising undergraduate freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, had 21 minority students participate in a rigorous six-week academic skills building program. The goal of the program is to provide undergraduate students with a medical school-like experience while helping them to enhance their early knowledge base and personal learning skills.
Chelsea Dorsey, MS 2, who worked as a CAMP teaching assistant said, “I feel quite lucky that I got to spend time with such an intelligent, motivated, and energetic group of undergraduates. I was consistently amazed with the curiosity they brought with them each and every day, which manifested in a barrage of interesting and well thought out questions for each lecturer.”
The CAMP curriculum was presented in a mini-medical school format taught by Pritzker and visiting faculty members. Once a week, the students shadowed a physician in a clinical setting at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Every two weeks, students researched clinical topics and presented their findings to peers, medical students, and faculty. The program also included information about admissions, finance, skills building workshops, and a health care disparities lecture series.
CAMP was enhanced by the contributions of six Pritzker students who served in the following roles: Comfort Ibe, MS 4, Student Coordinator; Chelsea Dorsey, MS 2 and Bryan Smith, MS 2, Teaching Assistants; Shamsideen Musa, MSTP, Hussein Musa, MSTP, and Audrey Brewer, MS 4, Presenter.
The spirit of cooperation shined brightly at Pritzker this summer where more than 60 faculty members, residents, medical school students, and medical school staff generously volunteered to serve as research mentors, lecturers, and workshop leaders for both programs.
