University of Minnesota medical students launch nonprofit to give kids a roadmap to medicine
MINNEAPOLIS – Doctors have one of the most respected occupations there is, and it's a hard one, too. Take the University of Minnesota Medical School: Only about 6% of applicants get accepted.
On a busy weekdays, a group of second-year med students is congregated at the U. But they aren't talking science - this is all extracurricular.
"We have three pillars we are focused on: mentorship, community engagement and workshops," said student Emmanuel Fale.
Amidst the busiest of times, they took on the biggest of challenges, creating a nonprofit called MD LINK. Emmanuel, who grew up in St. Cloud, the son of a nurse, is one of the founders.
"Working with communities that I can identify with in some aspect, when I had that opportunity it was because someone else was serving as a mentor," he said.
He says kids are often told you can be a doctor if you believe, but they don't have a roadmap to get there.
"We don't always see the work that has to go in between point A and point B to get from point A to point B," he said.
He's doing it with his friend Maurice Hicks, who plans to go into psychiatry.
"I have always loved helping those around me and just being a source of joy and mentorship to others as an 'a-ha' moment," Hicks said.
And then there's Michael Kelly, who spent his teens in foster care.
"I wanted to be everywhere but home, basically. My high school mentors encouraged me to do something in the community and that was actually volunteering at the hospital, and so I think just a lot of things added up to get me to where I'm at right now," Kelly said.
And together they are working to get others there, too, making deep, committed mentorships and hosting workshops with vulnerable youth - showing them what can be, and how to get there.
"To be able to step up and fill that need and provide this trauma-informed care and mentorship that our city, that our generation of kids globally are really in need of," Hicks said.
Click here to find out about connecting with an MD LINK mentor.
