Pitt Pediatrics congratulates the Career Help Advancement and Achievement Mentorship Program (CHAMP) for their receipt of an American Academy of Pediatrics Pathway Innovation Program grant. This funding will help the CHAMP team expand integrated mentorship and well-being efforts developed in partnership with UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and local Pittsburgh middle school, Arsenal Middle School.
CHAMP aims to provide academic, mentoring and lifestyle support to underrepresented in medicine minority (URiM) medical and middle school students. The primary goal of CHAMP is to increase the pipeline of opportunities and promote careers in pediatrics for underrepresented minority in medicine (URiM) medical students at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and middle school students at Arsenal Middle School.
CHAMP recruits URM medical students to come together to learn about pediatrics, obtain one-on-one paired mentoring from faculty, and to participate in monthly sessions on needs-based academic and life-skills topics such as how to be a mentee, wellness, time management, financial planning, and more. Medical students in turn develop and participate in health curriculum development for middle school students.
To date, programming to date involves 20 medical students and approximately 150 middle school students. six medical students have applied and admitted to the CHAMP Steering Committee; this committee of highly engaged medical students work to develop programming middle school. Faculty and medical school students involved in CHAMP work to increase exposure to and interest in health sciences and pediatrics via middle school science curricula.
The CHAMP program is led by Sylvia Owusu-Ansah, MD, MPH, FAAP, associate vice chair of diversity, equity, and inclusion; Noel Spears Zuckerbraun, MD, MPH, vice chair of education; and assistant professor Orquidia A. Torres, MD, MS.