Brain Camp: A Summer Pipeline Program to Increase Diversity in Neurosciences

Despite calls to increase diversity in the health care workforce, most medical fields including neurology have seen minimal advances, owing in part to the lack of developing a robust pipeline for trainees from underrepresented backgrounds. We sought to create an immersive, replicable neurology-themed summer camp and longitudinal mentorship program for underrepresented-in-medicine (URM) high-school students to encourage them to enter the training pipeline in neuroscience-related fields.

We established an annual, no-cost 1-week camp for local URM students with the goals of exposing them to different health care professions within neuroscience while providing them with college application resources and long-term mentorship. A postprogram survey was distributed to assess the students' attitudes towards the camp and their desires to pursue health care careers.

Over the 4 years since the founding of the camp (2016-2020), a total of 96 students participated, of whom 53% were URM, 74% came from very low-income households, and 61% had parents who did not attend college. In total, 87 students (91%) completed the postcamp survey. Nearly all (97%) of the respondents were likely to recommend the camp to their peers, and the vast majority (85%) felt that Brain Camp made them more likely to pursue careers in health care.

Brain Camp seeks to address the unmet need for low barrier-to-entry programs designed for URM high-school students interested in health care careers. We envision that our camp may serve as a blueprint for other similar programs across the nation with the goal of addressing the URM pipeline in neuroscience.