Our February grant has been awarded to the ​​FutureDocs: Interactive Medical Workshop, a free, hands-on workshop hosted in Washington Heights on Columbia University’s medical campus and led by volunteer medical students, undergraduates, and residents from underrepresented backgrounds. The project gives underrepresented high school students early, immersive exposure to medicine; often for the first time. Past workshops have introduced rehabilitation medicine and its links to emergency medicine, sports medicine, surgery, and cancer care. Their next workshop will focus on pain medicine, addressing inequities in pain management in the context of the opioid crisis.

In their own words:

Our workshop will provide students with an engaging talk from doctors in Anesthesia and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R) fields, discussing their roles in pain medicine, why treating chronic pain matters, and pathways to becoming doctors in their fields. We’ll provide free lunch before starting the hands-on sessions. Students will then split into groups where they get to ask questions to our student and resident volunteers about their journeys to medicine. These same volunteers will teach students how to place IV lines and how to use a TENS unit, a device used for noninvasive pain relief. The session we expect to excite the students the most is using virtual reality (VR) for practicing Botox injections to minimize painful muscle contractions in patients with strokes, spine or brain injuries, and other neurological diseases.

We are building the first-ever PM&R-centered pipeline to medicine for NYC youth, and we’re doing it in a way that’s fun, interactive, and unforgettable. We’re dedicated to sparking interest in medicine, and providing the guidance, connections, and resources necessary to turn what for some can seem like a distant dream into reality. Students walk out with new skills and real opportunities to shadow physicians, volunteer, participate in research, and gain mentors.

We’re med students, residents, and undergrads from African and Caribbean backgrounds in underserved NY communities. Our project makes our community more awesome by turning proximity into possibility. Washington Heights and Harlem are home to one of the world’s leading medical centers. Too many local students grow up seeing medicine as something close but out of reach. Many of us on the team grew up in these same neighborhoods, and remember how rare, and powerful, it was to see a physician who looked like us. This project exists because we know firsthand how belief, access, and mentorship can change a life. We are uniquely positioned to bridge that gap for our community because we are living proof of success stories in the making, and we have the experience and network to make a difference.

By bringing underrepresented high school students onto Columbia’s medical campus for a hands-on, welcoming experience, we close that psychological and access gap. Students don’t just hear about medicine. They touch it, try it, talk to physicians who share their backgrounds, and leave knowing where to go, who to ask, and what paths are possible. Our upcoming workshop, planned for mid-April, focuses on pain medicine, a timely issue as our community navigates chronic pain, mistrust in healthcare, and the impact of the opioid crisis. As equity efforts and funding opportunities are pulled back nationally, this project responds by investing directly in overlooked communities by providing targeted access, mentorship and opportunity.

In the short term, the community builds trust, knowledge, and access in the realm of pain management; an issue that affects many families and is often misunderstood or mistrusted. In the long term, this builds a stronger local pipeline of future healthcare workers who reflect the community they serve, especially in medical fields that are chronically underrepresented. That matters because patients have better outcomes when they feel seen and understood by their doctors. This workshop gives access to what we wish we had more of growing up: hands-on exposure, role models and meaningful opportunities.

Our impact won’t be abstract: it will plant seeds for confidence, skills, and relationships in one afternoon that ripple forward into better health, better care, and a healthcare workforce that actually looks like New York City.

• Community members can stay connected to our work and upcoming events by following our Instagram page @columbiapmrseries