Award $5,000
In 1996, the UF Medical Guild underwrote the UF Health Science Center’s Mini Medical School. Each Fall the Center for Precollegiate Education and Training (CPET) invites secondary science, health, and vocational teachers to attend a day long program which focuses on current biomedical trends. Teachers have the opportunity to interact and to exchange ideas about medical education outreach. The teachers are exposed to advances in the medical sciences which are taken back to their colleagues and students.
In November 2022, the Mini Medical School program was conducted in-person at UF Shands. The theme was “Tracking Health and Disease: Explorations in Epidemiology.” Topics included “Substance Use and HIV Epidemiology”, “One Health approaches to Zoonotic Disease Epidemiology”, “Cholera Conundrum”, and “Medical Geography and Spatial Epidemiology.”
The 2021 Mini Medical School program was delivered in an online format due to COVID-19 restrictions on in-person programming. A 3-part webinar series on “Understanding Adolescent Mental Health During the Pandemic” was presented to secondary science, health, and vocational teachers to broaden their knowledge of teenage mental health.
In December 2020, an impressive slate of UF researchers participated in Mini Medical School via a series of 2-hour webinars. The program focused on Virology and Immunology to broaden participant’s knowledge and understanding of the basic biomedical concepts that underlie current research on COVID-19 and other infectious diseases and therapies/preventions.
The Spring 2019 Mini Medical School program’s content was provided in partnership with the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute to explore current research in the field of antimicrobial resistance.
In the Fall of 2018, the Mini Medical School program was about anxiety and mental health through the Center for OCD, Anxiety, and Related Disorders. Both clinical and research approaches to this significant issue were presented.