The Health Career Collaborative (HCC) is a 501c-3 non profit organization that supports medical training programs and other healthcare partners to engage in meaningful outreach to youth from historically marginalized communities that are underrepresented in medicine. The HCC model includes empowering medical students and allied health professional students to go to the high schools to serve as mentors and provide engaging science and health curriculum to high school students from local underserved schools. The mentors then support the high school students to create high level academic and artistic presentations about health topics of their choosing. Regular field trips to the medical school and healthcare facilities are an important part of the HCC model to show the high school students the possibilities of careers in healthcare. As of 2024, HCC has chapters in 32 cities at more than 40 medical schools and health professional training programs.
Health Career Collaborative Structure
The Health Career Collaborative has distinct curriculum for 10th, 11th, and 12th grade high school students. Some HCC chapters follow the structure in the above graphic, while others mix and match to create a program that best meets the needs of all programparticipants.
High School Student Participants
HCC aims to increase representation of populations underrepresented in healthcare. As such, the program should be provided to high school students from underrepresented minority and/or low-income communities.
High school partners should serve >90% high school students from underrepresented minority and/or low-income communities.
HCC Chapter Teams
To carry forward the engaging programs of the Health Career Collaborative, chapters generally are composed of the following members: Medical School Administration, Medical School Faculty Sponsors, Medical Students, Allied Health Professional Students, High School Administrators, High School Teachers, and High School Students
HCC Funding
We are grateful for the significant support of Main Line Health and the Intuitive Foundation whose generosity has made it possible to build and grow the Health Career Collaborative. We are also grateful to the National Board of Medical Examiners and other private funders who have enabled the sustainability of this work.