An experiment in health careers recruitment: a summer program at Indiana University

During the summer of 1973, the Indiana University Division of Optometry, via a Special Project Grant from the National Institutes of Health, conducted its first Summer Institute in the Health Related Professions for High School and College Students. Twenty-seven high school students and twenty-nine college students were brought to Indiana University for intensive sessions in career awareness, curriculum and financial counseling, and academic coursework. Assisted by the staffs of Indiana Health Careers, Inc. and the Indiana University Coordinators for School Science, the Institute awakened new interests and goals, relative to the health career prospectus, within the trainees. As a direct consequence of the summer program, four participants in the college institute were matriculated into schools of medicine, pharmacy, and optometry during the semester following the culmination of the Institute; ten more are participating in the followup program for continued guidance and counseling, seeking 1974 entrance into health professions schools and colleges. This experiment in health professions recruitment for minority, disadvantaged, and low-income students proved to be a viable method of increasing the manpower pool of health professionals.