SUNY Downstate Medical Center Awarded $3.2 Million For Comprehensive National Health Career Opportunity Program
Oct 9, 2018
Five-Year Federal Grant Provides In Funding for Diversity in Health Care Academy
Brooklyn, NY - SUNY Downstate Medical Center announced receipt of a 5-year federal grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The $3.2 million grant will fund the Comprehensive National Health Careers Opportunity Program (HCOP) Academy at SUNY Downstate. The Office of Diversity Education and Research in the College of Medicine and the Arthur Ashe Institute of Urban Health will work in collaboration on the HCOP Academy to attract, recruit, and retain economically and educationally disadvantaged students from Brooklyn.
"We're delighted to partner with our colleagues to address the need for STEM pipeline programs," said SUNY Downstate president Wayne J. Riley, M.D. "As the only academic medical center in Brooklyn, we are committed to empowering the next generation of medical professionals and providing opportunities for underrepresented students while promoting diversity in health care. This HRSA grant affords us opportunities to reach students who might otherwise not have considered the variety of career paths healthcare offers."
The HCOP Academy supports several pipeline programs to increase the diversity of high school, undergraduate, and post-baccalaureate students entering health professions careers. Scholarships will be offered to health profession degree students from North and Central Brooklyn communities to support students entering the College of Medicine and the College of Health-Related Professions.
"The HCOP Academy will support the legacy of diversity of SUNY Downstate Medical Center and advance our mission to train the best and brightest students," said principal investigator and SUNY Downstate Diversity Education and Research director Dr. Anika Daniels-Osaze.
Along with Dr. Daniels-Osaze, Diversity Education and Research associate dean Dr. Carla Boutin-Foster, and Drs. Marilyn Fraser and Mary Valmont of the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health will lead the HCOP Academy. Educational objectives for the HCOP Academy include research and clinical exposure, MCAT training, comprehensive financial aid, scholarship information, and primary care exposure in federally qualified health centers in North and Central Brooklyn.
For more information on the Downstate's HCOP Academy programs, click here.
###
About SUNY Downstate Medical Center
SUNY Downstate Medical Center, founded in 1860, was the first medical school in the United States to bring teaching out of the lecture hall and to the patient’s bedside. A center of innovation and excellence in research and clinical service delivery, SUNY Downstate Medical Center comprises a College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School of Health Professions, a School of Graduate Studies, School of Public Health, University Hospital of Brooklyn, and a multifaceted biotechnology initiative including the Downstate Biotechnology Incubator and BioBAT for early-stage and more mature companies, respectively.
SUNY Downstate ranks twelfth nationally in the number of alumni who are on the faculty of American medical schools. More physicians practicing in New York City have graduated from SUNY Downstate than from any other medical school.