Students Explore Medical Careers in Summer Program

SHPEP students from left: Areya Sheikhan, Emily Lewis, Megna Senthilnathan, Maria Guadalupe Parra and Maria del Carmen Parra

As the only Indian child in her small New Hampshire town, and later, the only Indian student in her class at the University of Vermont, Megna Senthilnathan sometimes questioned her decision to pursue a pre dental education. She wondered if it would land her in yet another environment where no one had a background like her own and few shared the experience of being a minority student.

The month-long Summer Health Professions Education Program (SHPEP) at RSDM and NJMS convinced her  she's on the right path. It allowed her to learn alongside students from many different cultures and ethnicities and helped her realize how encouraging that can be. "Just to be interacting with other minorities who have immigrant parents and even parents from the same country as my parents has just been great,'' she declared.

The SHPEP program, founded in 1989, is designed to boost the number of underrepresented minority students enrolling in a health professions school but also includes students from a range of ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. Formerly known as the Summer Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP), it helps undergraduate college students from across the U.S. learn about the skills and training needed to enter healthcare professions.

The national program, established by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is held annually for rising college sophomores and juniors. It combines lessons on research, science and public health with an intro to clinical basics, like making wax dental impressions. An important aspect of the program is connecting students with potential role models: minority faculty, staff and current dental students who can give them advice and encouragement they might not get from others.

For Maria del Carmen Parra, a Puerto Rican student at North Carolina Central University, the experience has been "empowering.'' She said, "There are so many people here trying to do great things and I want to be a part of that, too.''

Parra also had a chance to work with her twin sister, Maria Guadalupe Parra, who participated in the program as an aspiring nurse.

This year, there was more emphasis on interdisciplinary work among healthcare fields, thanks to a $415,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "We all work together -- oral surgeons need nurses, for instance -- and everyone plays a part,'' said Maria Guadalupe Parra. "Communication is every important.''

For Areya Sheikhan, a Rowan University student, the program inspired him to pursue oral surgery after he had a chance to observe RSDM faculty and students during a dental implant procedure. "It was very intense. Getting to see that kind of clinical work was awesome,'' raved Sheikhan, whose father is from Iran. "This is something he would have loved to be a part of. Coming to the U.S. was a culture shock for him,'' he added.

Emily Lewis, a student at James Madison University in Virginia, is a predental student minoring in Spanish and hopes to work with Spanish-speaking patients and other underserved populations. She said it was invaluable for her to see a Spanish-speaking student communicating with patients in their own language. "She was pulling a woman's tooth and speaking Spanish to her, and explaining it step by step,'' said Lewis.

All five students said the program deepened their commitment to choosing a medical career and equipped them with tools to navigate the first steps of their journey.