Propelling Adolescents Toward Careers in Healthcare (PATCH): A Medical Student Led Pipeline Program for High School Students Underrepresented in Medicine

Despite the growing diversity of the United States population, individuals from many racial and ethnic minority groups and low-income families continue to be underrepresented in the health professions. A diverse healthcare workforce would improve cultural competency and create a system better suited to address the vast health disparities in many disadvantaged communities, yet the current educational pipeline needs to expand opportunities to provide students traditionally underrepresented in medicine (UIM) a path to become a part of the healthcare field. The Propelling Adolescents Towards Careers in Healthcare (PATCH) program was founded to address this gap in the current health professions pipeline to ensure that UIM and economically disadvantaged students in Charlotte, North Carolina have an equal opportunity to pursue a career in healthcare. The PATCH program brings high schoolers from local low-income schools to the hospital every Saturday for 8 weeks, where medical student leaders plan and execute hands-on clinical training activities, simulation experiences, shadowing, one-on-one mentorship, and public health research projects for the scholars. 123 PATCH scholars have completed the program since its inception in 2015, and the overwhelming majority of those surveyed after the program indicated that they planned to attend health professional school and later return to their communities to improve the opportunities and resources there to promote good health. Through the program, the scholars are exposed to medical professions in a way that will not only benefit their career trajectories but ultimately increase the diversity of the healthcare workforce and reduce health disparities of future populations

Correction to: Cluster identification, selection, and description in Cluster randomized crossover trials: the PREP-IT trials

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article

Implementing stakeholder engagement to explore alternative models of consent: An example from the PREP-IT trials

Introduction: Cluster randomized crossover trials are often faced with a dilemma when selecting an optimal model of consent, as the traditional model of obtaining informed consent from participant's before initiating any trial related activities may not be suitable. We describe our experience of engaging patient advisors to identify an optimal model of consent for the PREP-IT trials. This paper also examines surrogate measures of success for the selected model of consent. Methods: The PREP-IT program consists of two multi-center cluster randomized crossover trials that engaged patient advisors to determine an optimal model of consent. Patient advisors and stakeholders met regularly and reached consensus on decisions related to the trial design including the model for consent. Patient advisors provided valuable insight on how key decisions on trial design and conduct would be received by participants and the impact these decisions will have. Results: Patient advisors, together with stakeholders, reviewed the pros and cons and the requirements for the traditional model of consent, deferred consent, and waiver of consent. Collectively, they agreed upon a deferred consent model, in which patients may be approached for consent after their fracture surgery and prior to data collection. The consent rate in PREP-IT is 80.7%, and 0.67% of participants have withdrawn consent for participation. Discussion: Involvement of patient advisors in the development of an optimal model of consent has been successful. Engagement of patient advisors is recommended for other large trials where the traditional model of consent may not be optimal