The Summer Health Professions Education Program - SHPEP

Our Story

For over 25 years, the Summer Health Professions Education Program (SHPEP) has been shaping careers and changing lives for its past scholars. The free, six-week academic enrichment program provides a rigorous curriculum, mentoring, and networking opportunities that many of its more than 22,000 alumni describe as life-altering.

Funded by the Princeton, N.J.-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation’s largest philanthropy dedicated to improving the nation’s health, SHPEP launched in 1989 as the Minority Medical Education Program (MMEP). Its goal was to increase acceptance rates for medical school applicants from underrepresented populations—a crucial step toward eliminating health care disparities.

Over the course of 25 summers, the program has evolved and recently expanded in 2016 to include an array of other health professions outside of medical and dental, including: Nursing, Optometry, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, Physician Assistant and Public Health. SHPEP’s goal is to strengthen the academic proficiency and career development of students underrepresented in the health professions and prepare them for a successful application and matriculation to health professions schools. These students include, but are not limited to, individuals who identify as African American/Black, American Indian and Alaska Native and Hispanic/Latino, and who are from communities of socioeconomic and educational disadvantage.

The effect SHPEP has on individual lives, however, is only half the story. Studies show health professionals from marginalized communities tend to practice in those communities, and patients participate more actively in their own health care when they feel an affinity with their medical practitioners. SHPEP not only increases opportunities for culturally diverse students, it also helps create a pathway to better health care for underserved populations.

Even the participants who don’t choose health care professions in the end, find that their lives and purpose are enriched by their immersion in this “academic boot camp.” SHPEP scholars have pursued degrees in nursing and advanced degrees in public health, the biomedical sciences, psychology, and other health professions.

Its SHPEP Alumni Advisory board is comprised of 12 committed and dedicated past scholars who work to provide additional educational resources and opportunites to alumni as they continue to pursue their careers in the healthcare industry. The SHPEP board members make sure scholars realize that SHPEP is a summer opportunity that last a lifetime!