How Spelman College Is Successfully Cultivating the Next Era of Healthcare Leaders

Dr. Rosalind Gregory-Bass, associate professor, chair, and director of health careers program at Spelman College, shared her proven expertise on preparing students for their next step after graduation, especially as they navigate into pre-health careers, during an exclusive panel webinar with Kaplan. Key takeaways focus on building student resilience and preparedness, using evidence-based practices to overcome financial and academic barriers, and ensuring resources are in place so no student falls through the cracks. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.

Share with us a high-level overview of Spelman College and your role there.

Dr. Rosalind Gregory-Bass: I'm Rosalind Gregory-Bass, chair and associate professor in the Department of Environmental and Health Sciences and Director of the Health Careers Program at Spelman College. I'm also a Spelman alum and have been serving in this capacity over the past 20 years. It has truly been a labor of love for me. My background is in healthcare, trained in the area of physical medicine and rehabilitation, but I also have done basic science research, studying gynecologic malignancies and looking at various population health concerns around women and health disparities that specifically impact that population.

Over my time, throughout my training and during my professional career, I have been focused on training others who are interested in going into health professional careers. Here at Spelman College it has been part of the fabric of what we've been doing since our inception.

We are a small liberal arts college, but ranked number one among historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Our campus has always had students who have been interested in health professional careers. We have approximately 2,800 students, and 900 are registered with the health careers office—almost a third of our campus.

Even though students interested in medicine lead our enrollment, we have students interested in different careers ranging from dentistry to public health, as well as healthcare management and all of the various allied health professions. Our office has been working diligently not just in this arena. We try to make sure that we embrace our liberal arts curriculum here at Spelman. We have a bustling Arts and Innovation Center. We also have a brand-new cosmetic science program and many other initiatives.

Even in our study abroad office, we have ranked high for making sure that students have global experiences. And that's one of the things that we've also been passionate about, having our students travel, doing global health trips. I am honored to be in this space and working with these students who desire to be leaders in their health careers.

What are your go-to tips for preparing students for competitive programs, such as enhancing your students’ medical school application chances?

Dr. Rosalind Gregory-Bass: For me, I really took some time this summer thinking about everything that was happening in the world. And one of the acronyms that I came up with was centered around the word “HOPE.” The letter “H” definitely stands for hope. It's very important that students don't become discouraged, that they focus on understanding even when there are perhaps challenges that happen with their classes, maybe with relationships, and maybe even as it relates to the first choice of school not working out or the first exam not getting the score they want. It’s important that they always remain hopeful. Even when they come in contact with individuals who may not have an encouraging word but try to dissuade them from going into a particular profession, I also have them focus on that adage of hope.

The letter “O” stands for opportunities and being able to take full advantage of all the opportunities presented to them, whether it's in their field of interest or outside, because they may find that they have a secondary interest or something that becomes their primary just because they took the initiative to take advantage of what was placed before them.

The next letter is “P” and that stands for partnerships and peers. There are still many institutions that have a very specific interest in the college or university you may attend, whether that's in a corporate world, whether that's actually in an academic setting for your graduate and professional schools, for students to tap into those. Then it may be less of a hard sell when it comes to really talking about what you're bringing to the table.

Peers means that you can learn just as much from your professors as you can from your peers. Your peers may be experiencing things in summer research opportunities or clinical experiences that allow you to then be able to learn from them and be able to leverage that degree of network.

The letter “E” stands for economics of healthcare, the economics of the undergraduate journey, because especially in this day and time where funding may not be as readily available, it's important for our students to have financial literacy. It's important for them to make wise decisions so that finances don't become a reason as to why they can't step into their career of interest. We want our students to remain hopeful and have a pedagogy of resilience.

One thing I find that is sometimes intimidating for students (because they don't recognize the number of resources that they can find in these spaces) is for them to really see themselves already as a professional, and taking advantage of opportunities such as conferences. Some of these conferences will have an undergraduate student rate. Or an institution may be willing to sponsor a student to make conference attendance possible.

Examples would include the American Medical Student Association, which may have workshops for undergraduate pre-med or pre-health students, the Student National Medical Association, or the American Physician Scientists Association, APSA, which has a mentorship program for students who want to get their MD-PhD. They can start with that level of mentorship to provide research opportunities. Even the National Association for the Advisors of the Health Professions has a student development conference that they offer where there's recruitment opportunities. And, the National Association of Medical Minority Educators has a student recruitment event at all of their conferences.

Students shouldn't feel too shy about leveraging the resources that are available to them. They can also use admissions representatives as another touch point to get the information, especially if their undergraduate institution doesn't have a pre-professional office. This may be a way that they can tap into those advisors.

As we think about preparing students for their next step after graduation, what are some of the common academic and personal challenges you’re seeing and how do you help them overcome these?

Dr. Rosalind Gregory-Bass: When I approach the current barriers that students are also echoing, it's really at multiple levels. First, is K–12 preparation. Our students are coming from communities or educational departments that perhaps had funding challenges. Once they get to college, they begin to compare themselves to other students and they start to understand whether they had certain experiences that would allow for them to maintain the same level of academic success or remain on that continuum.

It's very important that we have a number of checks and balances so that we don't have individuals fall through the cracks. Students will begin to share in advising sessions, “I've never had to study before.” They’ll say, “this is my first time really being challenged in this way and I want to know how can I still be successful?”

It's incumbent upon us to make sure that we're well versed about all of the different tutoring services on campus, the various math labs or other tutorials that could assist students throughout their journey.

Second, is navigating the ever-changing world of healthcare and understanding what the new demands are. We try to make sure that students are aware. For instance, artificial intelligence is a huge wave that has come through and we know it's being discussed in many different arenas. We’re asking questions such as, “How are we changing our curriculum to best meet the needs of the future and helping students to understand how these technologies will be infused into their day-to-day careers?”

Those are just some of the things that I think students have stated that they want to be able to do well in their courses. They want to be able to make sure they're prepared at that next level.

Other things in terms of mentorship and clinical guidance, we try to make sure that we have a repertoire of services available to them. Their pre-professional preparation or pre-undergraduate preparation as well as keeping up with the ever-changing career demands is what I'm hearing most often.

When working with students who may not be academically prepared to enter more competitive programs or professions, what are some of the success strategies that you employ?

Dr. Rosalind Gregory-Bass: It’s about not having one prescription for every student. You really have to talk to your students. They're not just numbers, but they have personal, academic, and career-related short- and long-term goals. You need to hear about their full story. That is what's helped me the most in engaging how to best assist. In my mind, we've put on paper all of the different Venn diagrams for this profession—if your GPA is this versus that, then we move in this direction. If your score on your test is this versus that, then we move in this direction. But I also try to use evidence-based practice around what happens for Spelman students. So even the culture and the outcomes for students at your institution will matter.

We’ve spent a lot of time understanding where our students have landed, what were the average GPAs of those students based on what career they ended up going into, or what grad program they attended. And it gave us a way of even using that information to advise our students by saying, “for most students interested in this profession, this was their average GPA. It doesn't mean that this won't happen for you, but let's talk a little bit about that based on the profile of Spelman students and Spelman alumni.” And then for them, it becomes a little bit more tangible because they know that these are individuals who sat in their very seats and that they have been able to still accomplish said goals.

I can think of young women, since I'm at an all women's college, that have perhaps had GPAs where one advisor may say, “this is never going to happen. Medicine is never going to be an option.” But in talking with them and helping them to be open, they were able to take advantage of partnership related opportunities. The partnerships definitely have helped us where a student went from a one-year master's program that was paid for because we knew her financial background and understanding that she didn't have resources to pay for a master's degree program. Then, because of who she was and how she had an excellent work ethic, was invited to stay on for a doctoral program. And all along the way was still taking the MCAT^® in order to see how she did.

Because of her outcomes and having her doctorate degree and maintaining relationships at the culmination or end of her doctoral program, she was able to gain acceptance into Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine (the South Carolina campus) and is now an attending physician up in Delaware. It's just been beautiful to be part of that journey with her. I have countless stories. You have to understand the population that you're working with and make sure that they understand how it's so important to be open.

Spelman College offers free test prep to your students through Kaplan’s All Access License®. Tell us about the impact this makes on your students’ lives.

Brittany Wampler: To provide a brief background, Kaplan’s All Access License is an umbrella program where institutions have the opportunity to license industry-leading test prep for graduate admissions exams, licensure, credentials, as well as skills development courses. Instead of students paying out of pocket for preparation, such as for the MCAT, LSAT^®, or GMAT™, the university licenses the courses and students then get access for free.

Dr. Rosalind Gregory-Bass: For us, with Kaplan’s All Access License we were able to now have a more cohesive understanding of the number of students that are receiving test prep. It used to be that they would be going to many different preparation programs and we couldn't really gauge an understanding of the impact of the ones that they were taking. By having this all-encompassing test prep platform and more localized in terms of our engagement with it, we're able to do more tracking.

For a student population that may not have money for test prep, Kaplan’s All Access License has really helped them as part of their undergraduate student journey. It's available should they decide to take full advantage of it. I like the fact that we have these resources and that we have the ability to offer it to them without there being another burden of cost.

For an institution-wide program such as Kaplan’s All Access License, how did you approach implementation? Do you have advice on how to get key departments on campus on board?

Dr. Rosalind Gregory-Bass: We see our institution as having two career development offices. We have the health careers office and then we have the career planning and development office. In the health careers office, we take care of all things MCAT, DAT, and OAT. Then in the career planning and development office, they handle LSAT, GRE, GMAT.

We stay in communication with one another about the services. But based on the population that they see, that's the test that they will advertise. And we're making sure that other entities on campus are aware of this benefit for our students as well.

For a lot of people who do pre-professional advising, there is a calling or mission in your life. Tell us why you chose this career pathway and what it means to you.

Dr. Rosalind Gregory-Bass: When individuals ask, “why pre-health advising,” I really have to be reflective of my journey. I know that as a student myself who was able to benefit from many different opportunities as a result of my time at Spelman and beyond, I recognize that there were key individuals who were able to provide me with guidance, support, motivation.

When I began my journey in various health professional spaces, I started to look around and understand the totality of what was happening in healthcare. It is an awesome profession, the ability to be able to serve and help others, especially in their time of need. It takes a special type of person to deal with the pressures that come with healthcare, but also to know that in these spaces you have to be knowledgeable, be able to pivot quickly, and you have to actually care and have compassion for the individuals you serve.

I knew that at some point along my journey and even while I was going through that process, I was constantly mentoring others. Because of my love of science and because of my inquiry and how we can always be in a mindset of solutions, I wanted to be in a position where I wasn't just seeing health disparities or wasn't just seeing few individuals coming from backgrounds like my own and not being able to gain access. It became even more important to me to be involved.

I live by the sentiment that, “to whom much is given, much is required.” That's why I wanted to be in a space where I could help others. To be a pre-health advisor has allowed me to bring together all of my passions. I'm hoping that I can also motivate, inspire, and give students that key piece they need in order to be able to bridge into those health professional careers.

We know we have a crisis in the United States right now when it comes to workforce development in this area. That's the reason for me as to why pre-health advising is so special and so impactful.

Ensure every student is prepared for their next step by offering free access to test prep and career readiness programs through Kaplan’s All Access License.