The Office of Minority Student Development at Georgetown University School of Medicine was established in 1974 to spearhead and coordinate medical center efforts to recruit talented underrepresented minority students to the health professions. A strategy was developed to focus attention on two critical points in the health professions pipeline: entrance to medical school and high school, grades 9-12. In the past 20 years Georgetown University School of Medicine has sponsored several initiatives and supported community ventures to encourage high school students to prepare for health professions careers. This program has helped District of Columbia Minority students learn about the technical, business and patient care aspects of medicine an the allied health professions. The NIH funded minority High School Student Research Apprenticeship Program (MHSSRAP) made it possible for minority high school students to participate in biomedical research. From 1981 through the summer of 1993, Georgetown University medical Center has provided an eight week summer research experience for 123 underrepresented minority high school students residing in the District of Columbia. All except for 10 of the participants subsequently entered four year colleges, and most have selected pre-health, science, psychology or mathematic majors.
