WELCOME
TO
STEP-UHP!
Service-Learning | Training | Enrichment Programs
Closing Opportunity Gaps In Health Careers
STEP-uHP is a career coaching program for students seeking socioeconomically and professionally rewarding service-learning and mentoring.
OUR STORY: WHY WE STEP-UHP
Passion & Purpose Led Us Here!
Students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds do not have equitable access to academic, economic and professional (e.g. mentors/role models) capital to sustain their career dreams. Hence there are persistent bottlenecks that disproportionately force these students from healthcare paths.
Vision: to create viable, simple and integrated opportunities that sustain health career aspirations for an inclusive and diverse healthcare workforce.
Mission: to recruit, train, and coach disadvantaged and underrepresented students into skill-building internships and champion their professional school candidacy.
STEP-uHP was envisioned in 2020 by Dr. George Agyapong, a first-generation, immigrant, low-income student (FGLI) who took a 7-year detour into Harvard Medical School. Dr. Agyapong juggled multiple jobs at 7-Eleven, the US Army Reserves as a Combat Medic, graduate school and research internships. Together in our shared stories, we have built a formidable founding team and an advisory board of medical educators and mentors at Yale University with expertise in community engagement, diversity and inclusion, and business administration.
To optimize our current traction, we would ultimately launch a sustainable socially responsive non-profit model this year. Key to our strategy, we are currently seeking:
Funding partners to support a cohort of students for Summer 2022. We have 3 college students and 2 high school students completing an iteration of the scribe training and coaching model. One parent saw our mission and offered to sponsor her two aspiring doctors and additional scholar to enroll in the online training model. We will recruit and train 10-20 students into service-learning roles that will expose them to medicine/healthcare this summer 2022.
Pro-bono managerial teams: social media and marketing; business/finance; data/research analyst; and campus ambassadors (great for pre-health students).
Partner scribe service users: physician practices, hospitals, healthcare leaders who will partner with us to place our trained STEP-uHP Scholars (scribes). Our advisory team includes faculty physicians and leaders at Yale School of Medicine and community partners.
Please contact us at contact@stepuhp.info or complete this form for more information and questions about your potential support in this cause.
61%
Higher chance for medical scribes
Service-learning gigs like medical scribing offers students direct experience in healthcare, access to potential mentors and sustain their aspirations. STEP-uHP offers longitudinal, service-learning (such as scribing) and integrated coaching. We invite institutional partners to align their scribe service needs with our equity-informed coaching model.
OUR SOLUTION
Imagine healthcare workforce equitably designed to tackle critical bottlenecks - an upstream, inclusive and rewarding ecosystem for all stakeholders.
STEP-uHP enables students from disadvantaged backgrounds to enter health careers through service-learning and career coaching into medical/health profession school.
Scholars are trained to standard as medical scribes and offered paid internships with partner hospitals and physicians. These service-partners will contribute into funds that provide competitive stipends and tailored career coaching for our scholars.
The current medical scribe industry/model has no impetus to address disparities in the premed applicant pool. So we STEP-uHP to close the disparities that exist in this status quo.
SERVICE-LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Recruit. Train. Nurture Aspirations.
Our first focus area is to recruit and train URM students as medical scribes to sustain their aspirations in health careers. Scribes are 61% more likely to gain admission into medical school, because scribing offers students direct experiences in healthcare, to meet potential mentors and sustain their aspirations.
We have designed a hybrid scribe training and coaching curriculum. With a $1,500 pilot grant, we currently support two students who are completing the training and mentoring curriculum. These Scholars will be ready for paid internships in Summer 2022.
TRAINING & ENRICHMENT
Build. Mentor. Reward parity.
STEP-uHP scholars will be trained as medical scribes and offered paid internships with partner hospitals and physician groups, who will contribute service fees into funds that support competitive stipends and tailored mentoring for our scholars.
In our early pilot phase now, seeking funding to recruit and support up to 20 additional students in an expanded pilot in Summer 2022.
NURTURING PARTNERSHIPS
Institutions. Community. Generations.
STEP-uHP has stakeholders in the early phase of this vision, including several faculty members from the Yale Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program and the Yale Department of Internal Medicine where some of our founding team serve.
Our community partners include the New Haven Promise, a local non-profit that provides scholarships to disadvantaged students in the public school system, where we can recruit and mentor cohorts of students into STEP-uHP.
OUR TEAM
Get to Know Us
GEORGE AGYAPONG, MD, MS
A first-generation college-grad and doctor, George took a 7-year detour to serve in the US Army Reserves and held overnight jobs as a security officer to make ends meet. He earned a Master’s degree from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell (MS, Biotechnology) while taking undergraduate premed coursework (evening/summer school). He persisted and customized his path into Harvard Medical School to became a doctor, 12 years after graduating college!
Inspired by mentors and opportunities that nurtured his dreams, George rallied our founding team behind a shared vision - to create viable and rewarding service-learning and coaching opportunities for disadvantaged students. Connect with George for mentoring or funding opportunities.
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New Haven, CT