The DEAL (Diversity Education Advocacy and Leadership) Fellowship represents a wonderful collaboration between the Jesse Brown Veterans Administration, specifically the Jesse Brown for Black Lives Task Force and I Am Abel Foundation.
It is designed to provide a powerful leadership opportunity for Chicago area medical students, specifically, rising M-2s, underrepresented in medicine and includes powerful alliances with the University of Illinois College of Medicine and other area healthcare and social programs. Our DEAL Fellows will be in a leadership role working with the Jesse Brown VA Summer Clinical Immersion Scholars who are all pre-med students and mentees of I Am Abel Foundation with at least one year of involvement in our clinical immersion pipeline programs.
This year, all participating scholars will be rising 2nd year college students or beyond and within 1-3 years of applying to medical school. They will have a broad range of clinical opportunities at the Jesse Brown VA, UIC College of Medicine and Cook County Health that include everything from shadowing on the general internal medicine inpatient teams to working in every area from Emergency Medicine to Radiology. They will also be responsible for a number of projects. The Jesse Brown VA Summer Clinical Scholars program recognizes the need for our major academic and training institutions to lead the way in promoting diversity both in society and medicine. We have therefore combined our collective research and vision in creating an exceptional summer clinical scholars’ program that is led by none other than talented Chicago area medical students that are committed to diversity, education, advocacy, and leadership.
The DEAL Fellowship provides underrepresented medical students the opportunity to develop and teach lectures, apply their medical knowledge through clinical exposure and strengthen their leadership skills through supervision of premedical students while learning the intricacies of the VA Medical System. Our shared goal is to diversify the fields of medicine by preparing underrepresented young people to serve as we work to close the healthcare equity and death gaps that selectively impact vulnerable, underserved and minority communities.
To learn more about the DEAL Fellowship program, please click here>
To apply for the JBVA DEAL Fellowship Program, please click here>
Warm Regards,
LaMenta S. Conway, MD, MPH
Founder and Executive Director
I Am Abel Foundation
(708) 250-9091| (866) 600-6959