I built a curated resource to build a "bootcamp" course for students aspiring to become health professionals like doctors, dentists, pharmacists, veterinarians, and optometrists. This virtual poster was presented for the Academy for Professionalism in Health Care in 2022. After it was launched, around 100 students have accessed it through the Health Professional Student Association and Student Doctor Network. We are looking for opportunities to partner with other organizations to build leadership skills for future healthcare providers, especially given the challenges for the next decade.

1. Becoming a Student Doctor: an online aspirational interprofessional course on social justice and cultural competency
Emil Chuck, Ph.D., Director of Advising Services (emilchuck@hpsa.org)
Health Professional Student Association
aspiring
Course/Project Description Curriculum
Available mini-course
Feedback
Becoming a Student Doctor is a self-paced online course that
empowers students to better understand the complexities of
the healthcare system and articulate how they see
themselves serving within it.
The course promotes interprofessional communication and is
open to all aspiring and current health professional students,
including dental, pharmacy, veterinary, and professional
students as well as medical students.
Through the course, aspiring students build an application
profile and advocacy skills to articulate how they can fulfill
society’s need for health care providers and health equity in a
complex, culturally competent interprofessional system.
A pilot cohort reviewed an early version between February
and May 2022. A revised curriculum was released July 2022.
Opportunities
What is the most useful thing you learned?
● Awareness. It taught me how to think outside of the way I
was raised. The implicit bias-related awareness was so eye-
opening!
● Watching the provided videos helped me understand what
each core competency means and how to apply them
effectively through my experiences when crafting my
essays.
Would you recommend this course to others?
● There was a lot in this course that I had not thought about
before. How climate change affects health care delivery is
an excellent example of this.
● I would recommend this course to other students
considering health professional school because it provides
reliable resources on health topics such as diversity in
healthcare, the healthcare system, and resources for the
different [assessments].
Topics
● National priorities (2, 3, 6)
● Healthcare shortages (2, 3, 4, 6)
● Interprofessionalism (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
● Academic competencies (1, 2, 6)
● Pre-professional competencies (2, 3, 4, 6)
● Embracing inclusion (3, 4, 6)
● Systemic competencies (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
● Situational Judgment (2, 4, 6)
● Making a School List (1, 2)
● The Voyage Ahead (3, 4, 5, 6)
Content Alignment
1.Interprofessional Education and Training
2.Oral and Behavioral Health Integration
3.Social Determinants of Health
4.Cultural Competency
5.Practice Transformation
6.Current and Emerging Health Issues
Professions represented include
● Audiology/Speech-Language Pathology
● Dentistry
● Medicine (Allopathic/Osteopathic)
● Nursing
● Occupational and Physical Therapy
● Optometry
● Pharmacy
● Physician Assistant
● Podiatry
● Psychology (PsyD/PhD)
● Veterinary Medicine
Access to Becoming a Student Doctor is free to:
● Participants in or alumni of a diversity-oriented health
professional pipeline program,
● Prospective applicants who graduated from a US high
school located in a medically underserved area
● Prospective applicants who qualified for any application
fee assistance program run by a health professional
application service
We are seeking partners to further improve and enhance
this course and make it more accessible to motivated
future professionals from historically underserved
communities.
Treating Trans Patients is a free-to-all, self-paced course
designed to help aspiring and current health care providers
become allies and offer compassionate care to the
transgender community.
Topics included in the course include:
● Gender affirming care
● The intersection of gender and culture
● Training for allies and providers
The course includes over nine hours of audio and video
content, with most voices coming from the transgender
community, and companion reflection assignments.
All rights reserved for 2022 for Health Professional Student Association.