Initiative for Minority Students: Bridges to the Doctor*

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The United States is rapidly becoming a more diverse nation; non-white racial and ethnic groups will constitute a majority of the American population by 2010. Efforts to increase the diversity of health professionals are imperative to achieve improved access to care for racial and ethnic minority patients, greater patient choice and satisfaction, and better educational experiences for health professions students. The need to increase the numbers of professional nurses who have the knowledge base, cultural sensitivity and research skills to provide solutions to the persistent health disparities that are plaguing this nation is urgent. This background is the foundation for this project that aims to prepare minority researchers and scholars through initiatives that emphasize cognitive skills development and role socialization. The "Initiative for Minority Students: Bridges to the Doctorate" is a collaborative effort of the nursing programs at Thomas Jefferson University and the University of Pennsylvania, combines the strengths of a highly focused, research-intensive school with the strengths of an academic unit that enjoys an established reputation for success in transitioning minority nurses into advanced nursing education programs. An academic component provides the knowledge base for statistical competence and transition to doctoral study while an experiential component allows students to participate in research projects currently being conducted by nursing faculty at the University Of Pennsylvania. Students will work with researchers and develop a research proposal suitable for the preparation of an application for an individual traineeship award from NIH. The project infrastructure will emphasize mentoring and provide the requisite resources to insure the readiness of project participants for matriculation in a doctoral nursing program. An advisory committee will guide the evolution of activities designed to insure the success of this project. Plans for comprehensive evaluation and for dissemination of project outcomes to communities of interest have been established.