- Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity (MACHE)
- Center for Native Health (CNH)
- Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI)
- Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC)
This partnership builds upon the existing programming of each partner and develops new program components to address gaps, creating a structured pipeline to engage American Indian (AI) and Appalachian high school students with resources that support the pursuit of health and biomedical science careers.The MedCaT Pipeline works to achieve these goals by:
- Increasing AI and Appalachian high school student knowledge of, and educational preparation to pursue, health and biomedical science careers.
- Providing mentorship and scholarship opportunities for AI and Appalachian high school students during undergraduate health and biomedical science education or entrance into the workforce.
- Increasing high school health science teacher knowledge and ability to implement interactive pedagogy through problem-based learning.
- Providing mentorship for high school health science teachers to enable them to better engage students in health and biomedical science education by using relevant science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curricula and technology tools.
MedCaT objectives are accomplished through year-round, culturally appropriate components, including:
- Academic year learning labs facilitated by local community-based organizations.
- An intensive summer academy on the campuses of Wake Forest University and Wake Forest School of Medicine.
- Targeted mentorship for students and teachers.
Program Highlights Include:
- Sixty-seven percent of seniors from the class of 2017 will be attending a 2- or 4-year college program and plan to major in a health or biomedical science field, with the majority in nursing.
- An additional 20 percent will enter the health care workforce as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) or Physical Therapy (PT) assistant.
- Approximately 75 percent of MedCaT students graduate high school with CNA I, Pharmacy Tech or EMT Basic licensure or certification.