Annalese Williams was only 15 years old
when she first set foot on the UF College of
Medicine campus as a participant of the Health
Care Summer Institute — a College of Medicine
program that immerses underrepresented
minority students in the world of health care
professions. The third-year UF medical student
from Ocala looks back on it as the beginning
of something special.
“Before that experience, I was under the
impression that people who looked like me
were not in the medical field,” said Williams, who
now works as a camp coordinator for the Health
Care Summer Institute, organized by Donna
Parker, MD ’90, and her team at the UF College
of Medicine’s Office for Diversity and
Health Equity.
Parker explained that UF and the College of
Medicine have a number of pipeline programs
in place that target young, pre-professional
Summer Neuroscience
Internship Program
minority students or students from rural
areas with limited access to health care. The
programs can include physician and scientist
shadowing, laboratory time, college prep
courses and, most important, mentoring from
current medical students.
“It is remarkable to see the shift in a young
person’s thinking when they realize there are
opportunities for them they hadn’t thought
of,” Parker said. “They see others who are like
them or who came from a similar background
studying medicine, and they begin to think they
can do it too.”
Nearly 75 percent of participants from Parker’s
summer institute program go on to college and
about 50 percent pursue graduate education.
“If we are going to alleviate health disparities
and achieve health equity in our communities,
we must increase diversity in the physician
workforce,” Parker said. “It’s crucial to show
students at an early age that there is a whole
world of possibilities out there for them —
that they can dream bigger.”
It is crucial to show students at an
early age that there is a whole world
of possibilities out there for them —
that they can dream bigger.
Building
a
pipeline to
medicine
DONNA PARKER, MD ’90
Associate Dean for Diversity and Health
Equity at the UF College of Medicine
UF’s pipeline
to medicine:
Health Care
Summer Institute
Summer
Research Program
Summer Health Professions
Education Program
20 | F LO R I DA P HYS I C IAN