UofL partnership with Central High School cultivates next generation of health professionals

An idea that took root in 2016 is bearing fruit for high school students, UofL students, and may even be slowly reshaping the health care workforce in Louisville. UofL’s partnership program for medicine with Central High School was the idea of Dwayne Compton, senior associate dean for community engagement at the School of Medicine.

“At that time, a large number of us from UofL School of Medicine, Jefferson County Public Schools and the mayor’s office had a meeting about how we, as a school, could partner with JCPS,” said Compton.

High school to med school

Compton saw a strong natural partner in Central High School which had with a long-standing pre-med program, and already a strong partner in other programming with UofL. The initiative, delayed a couple of years by COVID, was launched as an official partnership program in 2022, utilizing a mini medical school model.

The program, which pairs about 120 pre-med magnet students a year (30 per grade level) with UofL medical school, introduces medical vocabulary and basic pre-med training in ninth and 10th grades. In their junior year, students shadow in 10 core areas such as emergency medicine or pediatrics, and finish by selecting the medical specialty they want to pursue and shadow throughout their senior year.

Compton’s wife, Tamela Compton, Central High School’s principal, and the other half of the power couple leading the program, said she has been amazed by the level of maturity the program participants demonstrate.

She says at Central High School, where 80% of students receive free and reduced lunch, many students worry how to finance their dream, but they have been able to talk to medical professionals who were once in their shoes and can offer solutions, said Principal Compton. The students are given information and tips about scholarships, grants or paid internships.

Additionally, they are shown the ropes by UofL faculty and staff, along with UofL med students who are highly involved, helping teach lectures, classes and sessions, and are there to give advice, as well.

“The kids see the end product, that white coat, but they also are hearing ‘yes, I experienced hurdles, yes, I had setbacks,’ so that’s probably been the most powerful thing for a lot of our students,” she said.

Authentic experience

From medical skills to life skills, for the Central High students, the term “hands-on” can sometimes mean, literally. Central students were shadowing with emergency medicine physicians on April 10, 2023, the day of the tragic National Bank shooting in downtown Louisville and stepped in to assist immediately. In another incident, a man who had been shot was trying to drive himself to the hospital and crashed near Central High School. Using training learned through the program, a student applied a tourniquet and saved his life.

Dwayne Compton said every day the program is learning to flex to the needs of students, so now a mental health practitioner is part of the program to help students process the authentic, sometimes raw intensity of the pre-med experience.

“Our students have walked hand-in-hand with the doctor to deliver good news and bad news,” he said. “They’ve seen the birth of a child, but also the death of a child.”

Planting seeds

Compton said data from the American Association of Medical Colleges illustrates the huge shortage of health care providers across the country, and in Kentucky specifically, there are several counties with no physicians, and others in dire need of nurses, dentists, mental health workers and other clinicians. In addition to medicine, UofL’s Schools of Dentistry, Public Health and Information Sciences and Nursing all have similar career-driven partnership programs with Central High School. Each of these disciplines offer opportunities for shadowing, mentoring and earning college credits and certifications.

“With these strong partnerships through our health professions schools, more students who might have aspired to go to historically Black colleges or go out-of-state are giving their hometown options a closer look,” said Dwayne Compton.

He added that students who choose UofL may be able to sign up for Porters of Medicine, an undergraduate program that offers continued academic support, regular monthly programming, MCAT prep, tutoring and more.

With more than 1,200 applications for just 300 pre-med spots, the partnership program is poised for growth and replication at other high schools and health districts around the county. In the health care space, Central is becoming the blueprint for this kind of work.

As it evolves and looks at expanding to other schools, Compton said he is amazed how strong the program has become in just three-and-a half-years.

“We are proud as a university and a health system that we are getting calls from other medical schools asking about the intricacies of how we did this,” said Compton. “We are becoming a model throughout the country.”