American Indians remain significantly underrepresented in medicine and health professions, and IIMAGIN will help us pursue innovative recruitment and retention strategies to address critical health care workforce needs as well as support future students, faculty and providers.
– Bret Benally Thompson, MD
At a Glance
A new initiative called Increasing Indigenous Representation in Medicine through Academics, Engagement and Innovation (IIMAGIN) led by the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s Native American Center for Health Professions (NACHP) will expand the recruitment of indigenous students into health professions. American Indian/Alaska Native (AI) professionals are underrepresented in medicine and the health professions, and there are gaps along the medical training pathway at two key stages including application to medical school and retention/promotion to faculty. IIMAGIN aims to address the healthcare workforce needs at critical intervention points along the medical training pathway by creating dedicated pre-college and college pathway programs, establishing a pre-faculty development pathway, and developing new AI health and medical curriculum offerings.
The Challenge
American Indian/Alaska Native (AI) professionals are underrepresented in medicine and the health professions, and there is a great need in Wisconsin tribal communities to have medical and health professionals that represent their own communities, cultures and identities. Examination of medical degree application, retention and graduation rates have demonstrated that there has been little change despite the growing efforts to address these disparities. Moreover, there are significant gaps of lower representation of AIs along the medical training pathway at two key stages: application to medical school and retention/promotion to faculty.
The UW School of Medicine and Public Health Native American Center for Health Professions (NACHP) was founded in 2012 with the mission to improve the recruitment, retention and graduation rates of Native American health professional students and promote health education, research and community-academic partnerships with Native communities. Since its inception, the program has grown significantly from serving five Native American students and faculty to more than 50 Native American health professions students enrolled across the UW campus and hosting an advisory council of more than 25 Native American health professionals.
Project Goals
IIMAGIN builds on work NACHP is already engaged in and aims to address the healthcare workforce needs at critical intervention points along the pathway through four specific goals:
Create dedicated pre-college and college pathway programs through collaborations with the College of Menominee Nation and the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University to increase AI student recruitment, participation and engagement, as well as retention along a continuous pathway of program support and engagement.
Establish an AI pre-faculty development pathway, increase coordination and support of faculty retention, as well as community engagement and research.
Develop new AI health and medical curriculum offerings.
Evaluate IIMAGIN’s contributions through a culturally responsive framework regarding AI health professional pathways and medical education with the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
Progress Update
In its first two years, IIMAGIN has made positive progress towards project goals. NACHP has worked in partnership with the College of Menominee Nation and the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University to deliver eight events as part of their precollege and college pathways program. Event survey results show that students demonstrated an increase in their interest in health careers and expressed plans to continue education.
The team also launched the Visiting Student Opportunity, which offers rotations for visiting medical students to explore a specialty of interest and learn more about UW-Madison residency programs. They have fostered partnerships with eight UW Health departments who agreed to host students through this initiative. NACHP has supported four students’ participation in this program thus far.
In their effort to develop new AI health medical education, they created a course structure to optimize access and increase capacity for Indigenous health curriculum campus-wide and secured the teaching team for the first course.
NACHP is leveraging their WPP grant to further their work. For example, NACHP has been a recipient and partner on over $11 million in funding to expand this work. An award from the US Department of Agriculture-National Institute of Food and Agriculture will address the shortage of American Indian professionals by recruiting, educating, and retaining students in food, agriculture, natural resources, and human science disciplines committed to serving the Tribal Nations of Wisconsin and surrounding rural communities. An award from the Department of Health and Human Services seeks to provide health career exposure to pre-college and college students, increase the number of qualified applicants for medical and health professional programs, expand culturally responsive and community-based learning opportunities to support student retention, and expand American Indian-specific health focused training.
NACHP is also a partner in the campus-wide Center for Indigenous Research to Create Learning Excellence (CIRCLE) initiative funded by the National Science Foundation grant to formalize support and mentorship for Indigenous graduate students and tribal community engagement.
