Lydia Altaye, a junior at the University of Colorado Boulder majoring in integrative physiology, recently completed her summer Undergraduate Pre-Health Program internship with the Prevention Research Center for Child and Family Health (PRC) at ACCORDS.
“I chose the Prevention Research Center because of my interest in pediatrics and public health, and it ended up being the perfect fit,” Altaye says.
Through the Office for Educational Outreach and Pathway Initiatives, the Undergraduate Pre-Health Program (UPP) is designed to encourage, promote, and train the next generation of clinicians and scientists from underrepresented backgrounds.
UPP provides tools and opportunities for underrepresented students to succeed professionally and academically to reach their desired careers.
“We are honored that Lydia chose us. We feel like it was important to her training as she continues on to be a medical provider that she obtains exposure to community prevention programs and public health,” says Carol Franco-Rowe, MA, program manager for the PRC and one of Altaye’s summer mentors.
Altaye is an aspiring pediatrician, who has a minor in business leadership and certificates in care, health, and resilience and public health.
“I’m pre-med, and I’ve always wanted to be a pediatrician and work with children. Adding the certificate in global public health and being community health oriented stemmed from a trip home to Ethiopia for my 15th birthday,” Altaye says.
During the visit, her three-year-old cousin got sick, and the family spent time traveling around to find adequate health care.
“I was born here, and I grew up here, so seeing how difficult it was to find decent health care made me see how privileged we really are. Even when coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, it's still significantly better here than it is there,” Altaye says.
That experience, nearly five years ago, sparked her interest in someday returning to Ethiopia to provide care to children.
“I want to become a pediatrician, work here for a little bit, and then eventually have some kind of nonprofit clinic where I can do this work in Ethiopia,” Altaye says.
For the nearly 20 members of this year’s cohort, UPP includes Saturday academies throughout the school year and a summer internship. The first week of the summer, the cohort was introduced to the CU Anschutz Medical Campus through the Skaggs School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, the College of Nursing, and other departments and divisions on campus.
After learning about the various programs, students were placed in different settings including clinics, wet lab research, and the health services research at ACCORDS.
“I had no prior research experience, and it wasn’t an area I was really interested in because I didn’t know much about it,” Altaye says. “I have a newfound appreciation for research, and it was very interesting and valuable experience for me. I'm glad that it happened the way it did.”
Through the program students become more familiar with current health disparities, health policy, and social justice issues that impact equity in health care, inspiring the next generation of culturally responsive health care providers.
Altaye performed a literature review and environmental scan on centralized intake and referral systems, shadowed Mandy Allison, MAEd, MD, MSPH, professor of pediatrics and director of the PRC at ACCORDS, in her role as a pediatric primary care provider, and observed a nurse on their visit with the Nurse-Family Partnership.
The Prevention Research Center focuses on interventions early in the life course, with the hope of improving outcomes for moms, babies, families and communities. One of the programs that supports this work is the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), an evidence-based national program founded by David Olds, MD, who also founded the Prevention Research Center.
“I introduced Lydia to the Weld County NFP team because we felt that it was important for her to get exposure of what prevention and evidence-based programs look like on the ground,” Franco-Rowe says. “Going into the medical field she will be seeing these families in a clinical setting, and we wanted her to see the impact of public health programs and prevention programs that support families outside of the clinical setting.”
“The most impactful part of my internship was shadowing the home visits with NFP. I have been wanting to do the public health abroad, but I think that gave me a different perspective on public health here,” Altaye says.
An area of focus for ACCORDS is to train researchers in outcomes and health services research and provide mentorship to nurture junior investigators. Channing Tate, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine and an investigator at ACCORDS, facilitated the internship opportunity.
Franco-Rowe and Allison were excited for the opportunity to create space for an intern that aligns with the equity goals at the PRC. The pair says that exposing clinicians to community prevention programs makes for well-rounded academics, researchers, and clinicians.
“We go into this field, working for the university, because we want to support other people interested in research, who want to be mentored,” Franco-Rowe says. “On a very personal level, as a person of color, I want to support and uplift other young women of color, too. It gives me a lot of gratitude to know that we were able to give Lydia a space to learn and grow and to expose her to things that she might not have seen doing a pure clinical track.”
Altaye is back in class at CU Boulder, working as a phlebotomist and teaching assistant for anatomy, while volunteering as a care coordinator at the DAWN clinic. At the clinic, she provides socioeconomic screenings to ensure patients without insurance or social security can receive the care and resources they need. She is passionate about this work as it aligns with the type of physician she would like to be. She’s already looking ahead to next summer when she will take her MCAT before applying to medical schools and is also considering another research experience.
“Carol and Dr. Allison were amazing mentors. I feel grateful to have had this opportunity and to be able to have worked with them,” Altaye says. “It's a very welcoming environment. Especially as somebody of color, sometimes stepping into spaces can be very intimidating, but it was comfortable from the start. I would highly recommend it to any other students who can work with them or with ACCORDS in general.”