Diversity in medicine | Program details | Volunteer | Information for partners
Health Connex Santé
Diversity in medicine
Health-Connex-Santé aims to increase the diversity of our incoming classes in the Medicine program at McGill, while maintaining the exceptional academic backgrounds of our students. We are concerned with issues of equity and diversity because the average health care professional will come into contact with 70,000 patients, which means 70,000 different and unique backgrounds. The best medical professionals combine humanistic awareness with the science of medicine. This cannot be achieved when the medical establishment has a paucity of professionals from diverse social, economic, and ethnic backgrounds, as is the case today.
Moreover, Health-Connex-Santé seeks to eliminate barriers for well-qualified, capable applicants to our programs. We wish to allow worthy candidates from currently underrepresented backgrounds to share in the opportunities and rewards that careers in the health professions can offer.
Program details
- Host Faculty/Dept/Student Group: McGill Faculty of Medicine
- Main contact: connex.med [at] mcgill.ca
- Outreach website: Equity, Diversity & Outreach at the Faculty of Medicine
- Languages offered: English and French
- Year established: 2009
- Location and timeline:
- We coordinate on McGill campus but the program is run both on campus and in local elementary and high schools.
- Runs from September until May.
- We also run a yearly summer camp called Explore! Careers in Medicine. Explore offers high school students an exciting and unique opportunity to explore careers in health sciences.
- Collaborative partners: We work with many schools: we solicit widely and then schools contact us for presentations. We collaborate with Community Outreach Projects, a medical student initiative; they give the presentations to younger students and largely organize our annual Explore! Careers in Health Camp.
- Links to media about outreach program: Read the article on Health Connex Sante in Maclean's Magazine.
Volunteer
Time commitment
Time commitment ranges vary.
Why volunteer?
McGill volunteers get to interact with youth in meaningful and engaged ways.
To get involved, McGill medical students can approach their peers in Community Outreach Projects for information. Students from other faculties can contact the aed.med [at] mcgill.ca (Office of Admissions, Equity and Diversity).
Information for partners
How the program impacts teaching and learning
- We deliver workshops on health issues relevant to youth and the social determinants of health.
- One of our greatest goals is to improve access to education, and especially to science education, to youth from underserved and underrepresented communities.
- We show that learning about science and health are fascinating, empowering, and directly relevant to everyone's lives.
- We are constantly thinking of ways to provide the most interesting, relevant and critical ways for youth to engage not only with the health of themselves and of those in their surroundings, but to think at the same time about their own dreams and aspirations for the future. We want to reinforce the idea that medical school can be for everyone, and if youth have a dream of getting into medical studies, we want to help and support them. We are interested in cultivating actual, active relationships with our community members.
Testimonials from high schools student participants at the 2013 Explore! Careers in Health Camp
"Make the camp longer!"
"Make it last forever"
"Le camp est parfait"
"Call us again."
"More chocolate".
To access the program, contact connex.med [at] mcgill.ca (Health Connex Santé).