Careers in Science and Medicine
Dr. Douglas Robinson created the cross-campus program called the Johns Hopkins Initiative for Careers in Science and Medicine (CSM). The goals of the CSM Initiative are to provide opportunities for individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds to pursue careers in science and medicine. The health and biomedical research workforce will become truly diversified when socioeconomic barriers are overcome, allowing individuals from all backgrounds to become members and leaders of their fields. Focused opportunities must be provided for individuals from economically and educationally under-resourced backgrounds, and the major challenge is to ensure that individuals with interest and passion also have the skills required to succeed at each level of training. The program strives to meet these challenges through our CSM pipeline initiative with support from the Thomas Wilson Foundation, United Way of Central Maryland, private donors, and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Program Summary. The program has a pipeline that develops students (‘scholars’) from economically and educationally under-resourced backgrounds into successful professionals. The scholars specifically have an interest in pursuing health care, biomedical and STEM careers. Many are already pursuing training for these career paths, but require additional educational development and mentorship to ensure that they are ready for doctoral level programs at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and elsewhere. To expand the pool of successful professionals, it is necessary to develop scholars beginning at a younger age; therefore, the pipeline extends from high school to undergraduate to post-baccalaureate levels. The program is also bringing the Fun with Science Camp for 5th graders into the CSM Initiative.
To be economically under-resourced, scholars come from households with incomes <200% of the federal poverty limit, though many scholars fall well below the poverty limit. To be educationally under-resourced, scholars must be first generation college and/or have been directed to high schools with greater than 50% of the student body on the Free and Reduced Meals program (FARM; most scholars come from schools with >~95% of the students on FARM). Many also come from households characterized by one or more of the following: single parent household, parent struggling with addiction or incarceration, abuse at home, or homelessness. To identify high school scholars, the program works with several close partnering organizations in Baltimore (e.g. Boys Hope Girls Hope of Baltimore, SEED School of Maryland, Green Street Academy, Baltimore City College, Dunbar High School, and Baltimore Polytechnic High School). The program conducts national searches for the undergraduate and post-baccalaureate arms.
The program is structured to develop scholars’ hard academic and technical skills, professionalism, and a list of tangible accomplishments. It achieves these goals through mentored research and structured academic training. It draws upon JHU scientific enterprise, endowed with phenomenal doctoral and postdoctoral trainees, staff, and faculty to deliver the programs. It provides exposure to role models who are highly successful faculty physician scientists and scientists. It also provides preparation for standardized tests to aid scholars as they seek admission into medical and graduate school.
Annually, the pipeline initiative is geared to serve ~30 high school students through the Summer Academic Research Experience (SARE; http://sare.cellbio.jhmi.edu) and Biophysics Research for Baltimore Teens (BRBT; http://pmb.jhu.edu/brbt/index.html). The program also serves 16 undergraduates through the CSM Summer Internship Program (CSM SIP) and 10 post-baccalaureate scholars through the Doctoral Diversity Program (DDP). Scholars are compensated with a stipend that makes it financially feasible for them to participate; however, the stipends must be earned and the bar is set high. With the one-week Fun with Science Camp, it will serve an additional ~20 5th graders per year, all of whom are from inner city Baltimore.
The programs are making strides (see Appendix 12: Outcomes of Outreach Programs). Of the nearly 100 high school-level scholars, nearly all who have reached college age have entered college, and >50% have chosen STEM or healthcare-related career paths. The post-baccalaureate students have been accepted into MD and MD-PhD programs at a variety of institutions, including Stanford, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Emory, Vanderbilt, University of Chicago, Albert Einstein, Tufts, Mayo Arizona, Washington University in St. Louis, Brown University, and Ohio State. The scholars currently have a 50% matriculation rate into MD or MD/PhD programs among the DDP scholars. The remaining are pursuing PhD programs, other allied health professions, such as dentistry, or other biomedical research career paths.