The Urban Health Appeal

Now that I’ve interviewed and received an acceptance, it’s time to start thinking about what I’ll be doing at UIC and how I am going to get the most out of it. While many aspects of UIC impressed me, there are two in particular that really made me feel that this school was the fit for me: The Hispanic Center of Excellence (HCOE) and The Urban Health Program (UHP). It’s the latter that I’m going to focus on for this entry.

To participate in this program, the applicant must submit a form before March 30th. This leaves me with a little less than a month to consider the questions asked and to figure out how to best answer them. As always, education is key, so here is a little research on the program.

The UHP’s ultimate goal is to train underrepresented health professionals, Masters, and Doctoral graduates dedicated to improving the quality and availability of health care services in the underserved urban areas. The UHP strives to bring in the underrepresented from an early time in education – about 7th grade or so. In fact, I was a part of one of the programs as a high school student! It should be no surprise, then, that I am once again drawn to this program for medical school, although it is no longer solely for biomedical research alone.

Some aspects I like about the program are that:

• There is a “separate” Urban Medicine curriculum that is integrated into the regular curriculum throughout med school. This includes opportunities such as being able to attend lectures by notable professionals and being able to go to and participate(?) in relevant conferences.
• There is a strong focus in the social/behavioral sciences. This is something that I’ve been working on close to two years now (at work) and it is a provocative and eye-opening field. (Side note: It’s funny, really.. when I first got this job I was disappointed that it was not more “biology” based. Things in life happen for a reason!)
• It is strongly encouraged that a combined MD/MPH degree be pursued, presumably to complement the field of urban health. I myself am very interested in one of two areas that UIC’s School of Public Health offers: Community Health and Epidemiology/Biostatistics. This would mean that a 5th year be added on, but I think it is time well spent.

I’ll be calling the office tomorrow to ask to speak to students currently in the program. I think that, after that, I’ll have a better idea of how to answer the questions on the application. I know that they may seem quite straightforward, but I don’t exactly want to state an obvious answer. Let’s see if there’s anything novel to be looked at instead!

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