Efforts to increase the diversity among healthcare providers may help close the gap of health disparities, combat inequities, and address medical access in underserved populations. In response to the need for more healthcare providers from populations under-represented in medicine, Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine (MU-COM) hosted a week-long day camp for high school students with the goal of introducing them to different healthcare careers and osteopathy. To determine the effect of a healthcare camp on recognition of careers in medicine and awareness of the osteopathic profession a pre- and post-camp survey was administered. Prior to the intervention of the healthcare camp, participants were able to list on average 5.4 healthcare professions, which significantly increased to 11.5 careers on the post-camp survey (p<0.05). Awareness of the osteopathic profession, as indicated by listing DO, osteopathy, osteopathic, or OMM in the pre-and post-camp surveys, increased from 0 to 42%. The survey results support the implementation of a healthcare camp as an effective measure to increase the perception of careers in healthcare while also enhancing the awareness of the osteopathic profession in high school students.

Creator

• Hum, Julia

• Skinner, Brian

Language

• English

Mot-clé

• underserved populations

• perception of careers in healthcare

• health disparities

• healthcare providers

• healthcare camp

Date created

• 2022

Resource type

• Poster

Rights statement

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/