Recruiting Native American Health & Science Professionals

Painfully few health and science professionals are Native American. CA-NARCH has formed a Student Development Program Team to ameliorate the disparity by actively recruiting and nurturing students. Geneva Lofton-Fitzsimmons leads the Student Development effort.

• Recruitment begins at the middle and high school levels with exposure to career possibilities in health and sciences. An example is the Young Native Scholars Program, a one-week residential program at SDSU and UCSD that prepares high school students for college while encouraging them to connect with their cultural roots.
  
  
• As they progress, students are recruited into university-level programs. The UCSD Export Program, which provides training and a stipend for students at the UCSD Medical School Research lab, and the SDSU Minority Biomedical Research Support Program (MBRS) are examples of these programs.
  
  
• Ongoing mentoring provides critical support, especially for first-generation college students who thrive as part of a wider community of fellow Native American students.