By Bridget M. Kuehn, JAMA, March 25, 2020
Jasmine Curry feels lucky to be a first-year medical student. The daughter of a single mother in Arizona, she spent summers and winter breaks in Kaibeto, a small Navajo Nation town. Now, she’s looking forward to a primary care career to help combat preventable illnesses in Native American communities.
“It’s everything my family and I have ever prayed for,” Curry said in an article describing her nontraditional path to medical education. She is 1 of 5 first-year students at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Medical School who were in last year’s inaugural class of the innovative Wy’east program, which gives a second chance to Native American and Alaska Native students who didn’t get into medical school on their first try.
The Wy’east pathway was developed to identify students “on the cusp of [acceptance] to medical school,” explained Erik Brodt, MD, director of the Northwest Native American Center of Excellence at OHSU. After successfully completing Wy’east’s rigorous 10-month medical school preparation program, participants, who must be citizens of a federally recognized tribe, receive provisional acceptance in OHSU’s medical school.
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