High school students investigate the medical profession through VCU project

By Erin Lucero
Office of Development, School of Medicine

Later this month, 10 Richmond-area students will mark their completion of Project ACEe, a Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine project designed to expose disadvantaged high school students to the medical profession and provide them with workshops and mentoring opportunities that will enhance their roles as students.

Project ACEe, which stands for Academic, Career, and Educational experiences, provides students with hands-on experiences in a variety of medical specialties. The program also enhances students' professional and skill development through an array of activities, offering career preparation as well as motivation and self-esteem for their future collegiate endeavors.

Students visited the medical campus for 12 workshop sessions, held from late January through mid-May, that focused on basic first aid skills as well as academic survival skills including test strategies and mnemonic devices, professionalism, college preparation and financial aid, and essay writing. Students also scheduled additional time with assigned physician mentors, visiting the mentor's campus office or community office, where they observed and took part in the daily routine of a medical practice.

The closing ceremony for 2003 Project ACEe will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, May 23, in Sanger Hall, Room 1-044, with a reception following in Sanger 1-038. The ceremony will feature student presentations highlighting their interactions with Project ACEe physician mentors. During the presentations, participants may provide an overview of a specific health care issue or disease or demonstrate an activity they learned from their mentorship experience, from charting a child's growth, taking a blood pressure reading, or performing CPR.

Begun in 1998, Project ACEe has enrolled 50 students. While most students in the program come from the Richmond Public School System, some from Henrico and Chesterfield counties also have been accepted. Two students from the first Project ACEe program will apply to medical school in the coming year, for admission in August 2004.

To be eligible to participate in Project ACEe, applicants:

• must be a high school junior or senior,
• be a member of a racial/ethnic population underrepresented in medicine and/or from a disadvantaged socioeconomic background,
• have a science and overall GPA of 2.5 or better,
• express a sincere interest in and commitment to pursuing a health profession, particularly medicine, through submission of a written essay, and
• provide two letters of recommendation from their schools: one from a guidance counselor and one from a science teacher.

The program is run jointly by the School of Medicine's Admissions and Minority Affairs Offices.