Andrea Agola

My First Term As A Pathways To Medicine Scholar

This Spring term, I have been accepted into the Pathways to Medicine Scholars Program! It's a Health Professions Program initiative providing opportunities for Dartmouth students from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine and/or who are passionate about equity in medicine, to support the missions and success of their medical/healthcare aspirations. Pathways Scholars are a committed cohort of Dartmouth students interested in exploring and applying knowledge of equity, social determinants of health, and medicine-in-action. I will be learning directly from physicians and public health experts, including Dartmouth/Geisel faculty, alumni and current medical students. As a Pathways Scholar I will gain vocabulary and insights to help create more just and equity-centered approaches to healthcare. I will have the opportunity to be a change agent in this regard. I will also be part of a supportive network of peers, experts and mentors for my pre-health journey. 

This past Saturday, I attended the first meeting of the term which was a full day introductory retreat. Going forward, Pathways will be meeting every Tuesday from 6:30pm-8:30pm. Not only will I get the chance to hear from experts from various fields and workshop/problem solve with peers, but dinner will be included (yum)! About halfway through the term we'll even have an overnight retreat! When I was applying for the program at the end of winter term, I really enjoyed one of the essay prompts which asked me to describe a topic around health disparities and health equity that I would like to focus on or learn more about in the program. I wrote about a current issue of public concern that's important to me: the medical inequality apparent among minority groups (mistreatment, etc) due to the lack of POC (people of color) representation in the medical textbooks doctors are trained with.

During Saturday's retreat, guest speaker Trinidad Tellez shared enlightening information and stimulated a just as enlightening discussion. She is a family health physician by training and has been more involved in public health over the last 10+ years as a Health Equity Strategist and instructor at Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine. She is also a New Hampshire State Representative which really goes to show how intersectional medicine and public health is. I asked my friend Faith Niyi-Awolesi, a fellow freshman and Pathways Scholar, what she thought about the retreat and she had this to say:

 "I really enjoyed it because it was such a beautiful community of POCs who are on a similar path that I am on. I loved learning about the complexity of "-isms" (racism, sexism, ableism, classism, etc) and how that plays into healthcare and health equity. It was nice to know that I'll be able to have this support system as I continue in my academic journey at Dartmouth."

I definitely echo Faith's sentiments and especially the one about "-isms" because we had a great discussion about that. Our guest speaker asked us: "What are some of the ways -isms are "baked in" to how things operate?" Not only was this a creative way to frame the question, but it truly speaks to the intersectionality of all of these issues within healthcare. As the term comes underway, I can't wait for more Pathways sessions!