Sam W. Ho Health Justice Scholars Program

04/04/2026

https://www.annualreviews.org/docserver/fulltext/publhealth/47/1/annurev-publhealth-082224-022250.pdf?expires=1775306718&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=07C867C436114732FF6D7060BCB39CBB

07/30/2023

https://stfm.org/publicationsresearch/publications/educationcolumns/2023/july/

It can be challenging to effectively teach medical students how to recognize and safely address racism, bias and microaggressions in the clinical setting, especially when most faculty report lack of training, resources, and expertise in this area.

11/06/2022

Vot-ER is founded on the belief that helping patients gain a voice in their communities and in the larger political process will help them improve the many factors — air quality, housing opportunities, access to healthy food — that play an outsized role in their health.

08/08/2022

Jesus Mejia (M25)

Jesus Mejia (M25) is one of our HJSP Scholars! Over this past summer, Jesus shadowed in the hospital, was involved in research, and also was a teaching assistant for the Tufts Mini-Med School Program. Jesus also had some time to go back home to St. Louis to see friends and family, and take time out before starting second year!

08/05/2022

Ryan Walker, MD, MPH

Dr. Walker is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and Assistant Course Director for Competency-Based Apprenticeship in Primary Care (CAP). Dr. Walker is a 2022 graduate of Lawrence Family Medicine Residency, 2018 graduate of Tufts SOM's MD/MPH program, and an alum of the Health Justice Scholars Program. In addition to her board certification in Family Medicine, Dr. Walker has a concentration in Integrative Medicine and Obesity Medicine. She also has specific clinical interests in reproductive health, addiction medicine, community organizing, and patient education. Academically, Dr. Walker is most passionate about teaching and mentoring. In fact, she serves as a Board Member of the Association of Black Family Medicine Physicians (ABFMP) and spearheads an annual Application series guiding 4th-year medical students through the residency application process, connects students with mentors, and mentors a number of students herself.

In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her significant other, dog, and family, playing card games, traveling, meditating, and learning about finances, generational wealth building, and entrepreneurship. In the Fall, Dr. Walker will begin practicing as a primary care clinician and serving her National Health Service Corps commitment at Lynn Community Health Center.

08/04/2022

Applications are now open for the M26 Sam W. Ho Health Justice Scholars Class! We encourage students with a passion for service and a drive to learn how they can make that service more equitable, sustainable, and transformational to apply! For more information, please visit our website!

https://medicine.tufts.edu/academics/medicine/sam-w-ho-health-justice-scholars-program

08/01/2022

Hey Tufts University School of Medicine M26's! Interested in applying to HJSP and want to learn more? Come hear from faculty and current students at our virtual info session Wednesday evening 7-8 PM (check your email for details). You can also check out our website https://medicine.tufts.edu/academics/medicine/sam-w-ho-health-justice-scholars-program. Hope to see you Wednesday!

To develop physician-leaders and scholars with the mission, vision, and ability to transform healthcare in partnership with communities.

07/30/2022

Ifechi Okonkwo, M25, MS

Ifechi Okonkwo is an M25 HJSP Scholar. This summer, she has been working on research on health literacy and informed consent, looking particularly at minority and underserved populations at Tufts University School of Medicine. Her projects seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of the key information section of informed consent forms for different on-going clinical studies and compare the readability, understandability, accessibility, decisional capacity, trust, language and communication, and understanding of the clinical trial. The project compares the original informed consent form with a modified informed consent form to assess the decisional capacity of patients enrolling in a clinical research study.

07/27/2022

Keith Nokes, MD, MPH
Director HJSP

Dr. Nokes received his MD and MPH degrees from the University of Connecticut and completed residency training in Family Medicine at the University of Rochester (NY) in the program's inner-city track. He completed a four-year National Health Service Corps commitment at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center—a community health center in Lawrence, Massachusetts—where he has continued to practice since 2001. He has served in a number of faculty and leadership roles in Lawrence, including Chief of Family Medicine at Lawrence General Hospital. He currently is Director of Medical Student Education for the health center and a faculty member at the health center-based Lawrence Family Medicine Residency Program, where he directs pediatric training experiences for the residents, precepts residents in the hospital and clinic, and works on a variety of initiatives to address Social Determinants of Health at the health center and in collaboration with the Merrimack Valley Accountable Care Organization. He was a co-founder of the Health Justice Scholars Program (then known as the Tufts Student Service Scholars Program) in 2013, assuming directorship in 2018. In the Spring of 2022 he was appointed as the inaugural H. Jack Geiger, MD, Director in Health Justice at TUSM. His interests include structural competency, social needs screening and intervention, health inequities, and medical student/resident education.

07/25/2022

The HJSP Program extends a warm welcome to the M26 TUSM Class! We are happy that you have chosen Tufts SOM to pursue your medical education, and we hope that you will consider the HJSP Scholars Program! Be on the lookout for more information about our program and the application process! We wish you all the best, and congratulations!