15 August 2024

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Columbia Program Supports Future Dentists

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Students from communities that are underrepresented in the health care professions often face hurdles and barriers beyond those of other students. To address those inequities and to increase acceptance rates to programs in the health care professions, including medicine, dentistry, nursing, and public health, in 1989 the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) established the program now known as the Summer Health Professions Education Program, or SHPEP, SHPEP is a free summer program designed to assist students who wish to explore interests in a broad range of health care fields and develop some of the skills and competencies that they will need to become successful applicants to health profession programs.

Every summer Columbia University, one of the 12 schools that collaborates with RWJF, welcomes 80 students from all over the country who receive academic enrichment in the basic sciences and math, clinical experiences, career development activities, learning and study skills seminars, and a financial planning workshop.

George Jenkins DMD, associate dean for access, equity, and inclusion at Columbia University’s College of Dental Medicine and a principal investigator for the SHPEP grant, has been involved with the program for a number of years.

“I fell in love with the ability to reach students very early and enrich their science skills and bolster their interest in the profession through hands on experiences, networking, and seminars,” he says.

Jenkins says that the program operates on many levels. The program supports students’ ambitions, increasing the likelihood that they will succeed. “We do our best to create competitive, competent dental students from areas that traditionally don’t produce very many dentists,” he says.

“Being at SHPEP at Columbia, which is located in Washington Heights, I was able to see that this is an area that has a lot of need,” says Ameerah Pruden, a student at St. Francis College who attended the 2024 program. “

“I came to SHPEP already pretty aware of healthcare disparities,” says Lotanna Oraedu, a student at Columbia University who attended the program this summer. “But I am learning more about social responsibility. I’m coming away with a more holistic view of medicine. I want to be a dentist but it’s important that I look at the whole patient.”

Individual students are further supported through continued contact with Jenkins’ office and by students who have gone through the program. Jenkins says that students who attend the SHPEP program at Columbia fan out to attend health professions programs across the country. Those students act as a support system for new students who have also been a part of SHPEP. “Once you’re a part of our program,” says Jenkins “we consider that you have joined our secret society.” Whatever success former SHPEP students find, he says, they use to help uplift the cohorts coming up behind them. “Last year’s cohort will come back to speak to this year’s cohort. It’s a pipeline.”

For example, he says, at the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine, students who have attended Columbia’s SHPEP program include a rising fourth-year student and a rising second-year student who will serve as a support network for an incoming first-year student and provide “boots on the ground” information and guidance.

But the impact goes beyond individual student success, Jenkins days. “It’s our hope that these students will be inspired and train and then go back and make a difference in the healthcare available in their neighborhoods.”

“Attending SHPEP has made me a little more eager to become a dentist,” says Robert Lee, a student at the University of Michigan. “It makes it a little more attainable.”

Source: https://www.dental.columbia.edu/