Northeast Pennsylvania AHEC Scholars Program

Are you interested in rural and underserved care?

If so, consider applying for the Pennsylvania AHEC Scholars Plrogram for an opportunity to collaborate with fellow health profession students from various disciplines and institutions across the state.

AHEC Scholars is a two-year national program funded by HRSA, designed to better prepare health profession students for future practice in rural and urban underserved communities. Statewide collaboration between the Pennsylvania AHEC Program Office and Regional Centers, and academic and clinical partners provides a robust interprofessional experience for students.

Participating students earn a certificate of completion after gaining valuable experience at team-based rural and/or urban underserved clinical practice sites, and receive didactic training focused in eight core topic areas. Collectively, this training aims to prepare health profession students to be better equipped at addressing the unique needs of underserved communities.

The Pennsylvania AHEC Scholars Program consists of didactic and experiential training opportunities with a focus on primary care and service to rural and underserved populations.

This program supplements students’ existing health professions programs.

What is Involved?

● 40 hours of didactic learning each year

● 40 hours of experiential learning (clinical rotations, simulations, community service) each year

● Commitment to completing the two-year program

The AHEC Scholars Program and Degree Requirements:

Many of the AHEC Scholar requirements can be satisfied by the didactic and experiential learning you are already completing for your degree program and in extra-curricular activities.

To qualify for the Pennsylvania AHEC Scholars Program, students must be enrolled and remain enrolled in their approved program and meet all academic and didactic training requirements of their respective health professional program.

Each participating academic partner determines how AHEC Scholar expectations work within degree requirements. The didactic and experiential learning experiences are devised in collaboration with each participating academic program and the Northeast PA AHEC regional center. Academic Program Directors determine the didactic curriculum and arrange appropriate student clinical training experiences for their AHEC Scholars Program participants. AHEC Scholars additionally receive community immersion experiences that are the foundation of the AHEC Scholars Program.

Benefits:

● Be part of a nationally recognized program

● Opportunities to engage with students from diverse health professions, academic institutions, and backgrounds

● Utilize curricular and non-curricular learning opportunities to better prepare yourself for rural and urban underserved patient care

● Network and receive mentoring opportunities with established leaders in primary care and rural health

● Certificate of Completion & Letter of Recommendation (Regional, State, & National)

● Career planning support through Northeast PA AHEC

● Leadership, Mentorship and Volunteer Opportunities through Northeast PA AHEC

● Poster presentation opportunities at the Pennsylvania Office of Rural Health Conferences

Application Process:

Applications are submitted online through our Pennsylvania AHEC Scholars Program website:

https://www.paahecscholars.org/application

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling admissions basis.

Contact:

Leslie Petroff, MPH

Health Educator

Northeast PA Area Health Education Center

570-507-7807

lpetroff@nepa-ahec.org

https://nepa-ahec.org

164 Scranton Carbondale Highway, Archbald, PA 18403

AHEC Scholars Core Topics:

Educational and training activities will support the following eight (8) Core Topics:

Interprofessional Education (also known as interdisciplinary training), which supports a coordinated, patient-centered model of health care that involves an understanding of the contributions of multiple health care professionals.

Behavioral Health Integration which promotes the development of integrated primary and

behavioral health services to better address the needs of individuals with mental health and

substance use conditions. Addressing clinician burnout and improve provider resiliency.

Burnout in health care professionals is widespread and growing; recent studies indicate

elevated levels of burnout, along with related conditions of depression and emotional

Exhaustion.

Connecting Communities and Supporting Health Professionals, which aims to increase training and development of CHWs and paraprofessionals to be the connectors who are able to serve as a liaison/link/intermediary between health professionals and the community to facilitate access to service and improve health equity, community/population health, and social determinants of health.

Virtual Learning and Telehealth, which seeks to improve virtual learning and telehealth

curricula and community-based experiential training. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced all

health care systems, hospitals, and clinics to rapidly implement telehealth services, simulation- based technology, and virtual trainings to continue delivering patient care.

Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) are the conditions in the environments where people

are born, live learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning,

and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. SDOH can be grouped into five (5) domains: economic

stability, education access, and quality; neighborhood and built environment and social and

community context.

Cultural Competency, which seeks to improve individual health and build healthy communities

by training health care providers to recognize and address the unique culture, language and

health literacy of diverse consumers and communities (e.g., National Standards for Culturally

and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) in Health and Health Care).

Practice Transformation, which aims to fully support quality improvement and patient-centered care through goal-setting, leadership, practice facilitation, workflow changes, measuring outcomes, and adapting organizational tools and processes to support new team based models of care delivery.

Current and Emerging Health Issues (e.g., COVID-19, Zika virus, pandemic influenza, opioid use disorder, maternal mortality, geographically relevant health issues, etc.).

Source: HRSA Funding Opportunity Announcement

AHEC Spring Speaker Series

AHEC Scholars Program Flyer