Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
G022 MCCARTY HALL
GAINESVILLE,FL 32611
Performing Department
COMP, DIAG & POP MEDICINE
Non Technical Summary
Veterinary medical colleges struggle to recruit an applicant pool that is diverse and representative of the US population. Outreach programs target students at a collegiate level, but very few programs involve the active recruitment of students in high school, a key time period for career planning and decision-making. In order to be successful, any program must provide a pathway for success that goes beyond a simple visit or outreach to a local school. Thus, Vet Start Mentoring Program is a sustainable program for recruitment and ongoing mentorship of high school students from under-represented populations within our local community. Mentors will include one faculty member and one veterinary student for each selected participant, providing an opportunity for multiple levels of mentorship and guidance for the pre-veterinary student.Participating students will shadow DVM faculty and participate in veterinary and animal-related interactive experiences that use many of the science and math skills obtained in middle and high school. In order to ensure that the faculty are able to properly relate to the participating students, they will be trained to become mentors using culturally relevant strategies. DVM students will also be trained and matched with participating underrepresented minority students and assist them with academic and social skills.This will culminate with a MicroVet School where participating students will use the lessons that they learned while attending two-days of Vet School at the University of Florida. A final ceremony celebrating their successful completion of the program will take with members of their family, school, and community. Throughout the program, students will be evaluated to determine what changes need to made to ensure their success in the program.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
0%
Applied
100%
Developmental
0%
Goals / Objectives
Project's Goal and Specifc Aims: The overall goal of the Vet Start Mentoring Program is to improve diversity in veterinary medicine by providing profession-specific mentorship and experiential learning to underrepresented high school students from rural areas.To this end, the following specific aims will be accomplished in meeting the needs of the targeted population.Specific Aim 1:Provide youth-specific mentorship training to veterinary faculty and students that will serve as mentors to URMs from North Central FL rural schools. Specific Aim 2: Provide URMs with meaningful and effective long-term mentoring experiences by pairing them with veterinary faculty and students that are trained in youth mentorship.Specific Aim 3:Expose URM youth to experiential learning in veterinary sciences.
Project Methods
VetStart is a targeted mentorship program that involves experiential learning and relationship building as a method to recruit URM applicants from rural communities to pursue a career in veterinary medicine. The juxtaposition of the UF-CVM with a rural area of north-central Florida is a perfect setting for a program that encourages underrepresented youth to become engaged in a career that emphasizes the application of STEM skills in pursuit of food safety, public health and production medicine. The specific aims will be accomplished as follows:Methods for Specific Aim 1:All potential DVM mentors will be asked to submit an essay describing their interest in the program, qualifications, expectations, and the importance of diversity in the veterinary profession. Ten mentors will be selected so that every mentee will be paired with a DVM faculty mentor. Faculty mentors will play a key role in providing the mentee with shadowing opportunities throughout the year. Mentors will also visit the schools and meet with their mentee at least three times a semester. Mentors will be selected based on their motivation, enthusiasm, and willingness to dedicate their time to VetStart.DVM students must be beginning their 2nd, 3rdor 4thyear in the professional program. All potential DVM student mentors will be asked to submit a one-page essay describing their interest in the program, qualifications, expectations, and the importance of diversity in the veterinary profession. Ten mentors will be selected for Year 1 and twenty (20) for Year 2 so that every mentee will be paired with a DVM student. DVM student mentors will help students with understanding the veterinary profession and will communicate weekly with high school students throughout the school year to ensure that they are supported academically and emotionally. Mentors will be selected based on their motivation, enthusiasm, and willingness to dedicate their time to VetStart. Consideration will be given to find diverse mentors that will relate to and be role models for the URM students included in this program.The three investigators will complete the "Train the Trainer" workshop for Everyday Mentoring offered by the Mentoring Partnership of Southwestern Pennsylvania. The program, which is supported by the National Mentoring Resource Center, provides guidance in structuring the youth mentorship program based on the stated objectives of the project. They will take part in evaluating the program, which will be supported by the Office of Juvenile Justice, Office of Justice Programs Award No. 2016-Mu-Mu-K001. In May of each year, faculty and student mentors will be trained on Developmental Relationships, Assumptions, Setting Boundaries, Challenging Behaviors, and Cultural Competency, and provided activities associated with Listening, Helping Youth through Challenges, and Avoiding Burnout. Specific aims for the project and responsibilities of the mentors will be discussed as well.Methods for Specific Aim 2:The two designated rural high schools (Hawthorne Middle/High School and Newberry High School) are located in Alachua County and are within 20 miles of the UF-CVM. Based on the goal of VetStart, both schools have students that meet the target of our program and can benefit from engagement in the veterinary profession. Both principals have agreed to participate in the program and help in the selection of URMs.The PI of the current proposal has an established relationship with the two rural high schools and strong support from the school administration for the current program. Participants will be rising 10thgrade students and must be at least 16 year of age on the first day of the program. Applications will be completed by each potential participant describing their interest in agriculture, animal science, or veterinary medicine, their favorite subject or activity, and their expectations from participating in VetStart. This will be carried out to ensure her/his commitment. All applications must be signed by the participating student and their parent or guardian. Applications will be reviewed by the selection committee and participants will be provided with UF-CVM documents that will allow college access.Methods for Specific Aim 3:During the summer, mentees and mentors will participate in a four-day orientation, which will involve learning experiences and activities that help in relationship building, clinical skills, and animal and veterinary experiences. Surveys will be administered to all mentees and mentors before and after participation in the VetStart in order to evaluate the program efficacy and collect suggestions for program improvement. Surveys are collected by program staff prior to the information being provided to the investigators to ensure that identifications are kept anonymous. A Likert scale model will be used with the following options: 1, strongly disagree; 2, disagree; 3, neither agree or disagree; 4, agree; or 5, strongly agree. Qualitative responses will be collected as open-ended questions as well. The VetStart pre-survey will be administered at the beginning of the orientation.After the orientation, mentors and mentees will communicate regularly about their summer experiences, courses and motivation. Return sessions will be scheduled to coincide with Alachua County School District teacher work days and holidays (a minimum of seven during the school year). Students will meet with mentors either by communications or through high school visits weekly and engage in further clinical skills and shadowing exercises throughout the school year.A two-day module will take place in the Fall semester where students learn about antibiotic resistance, a growing concern in human and animal health. This module will allow students to understand how antibiotic resistance develops and consequences to our agricultural industry. Students will begin the module watching videos of pathogenic bacteria and host interaction to brainstorm offensive and defensive mechanisms. After sharing their observations, student teams will create their own pathogen poster and share the features it has evolved to evade death.Armed with an understanding of pathogens, students will focus on antibiotic resistance. UsingE. colitransformed to contain an antibiotic resistance gene, students will test their unknown bacterial culture for resistance to three common antibiotics through a molecular experimental sequence of DNA extraction, PCR, and gel electrophoresis. To verify their PCR results, students will culture their bacteria with the three antibiotics. Students will then transfer their knowledge of how pathogens infect and evade their host to agricultural applications. Researchers from UF's microbiology and animal science departments will share their recently published results demonstrating the presence of antibiotic resistant microbes in the gut of cattle fed only a diet of grass without added antibiotics. Students will visit UF cattle farms to hypothesize how this might occur and suggest best practices for keeping livestock protected against emerging pathogens.The program will conclude with MicroVet School, which will be conducted during Spring Break. This will consists of interactive lectures that provide participating students with a culminating experience that allows them to apply the lessons learned throughout the year to the veterinary profession through typical veterinary courses. For example, the parasitology course may specifically be on how certain parasites have become resistant to antibiotics or evade the immune system. The post-survey will be provided at the end of MicroVet School.