The Community of Support helps Black students develop their potential as future health professionals
For many students, the path to entry into medical school begins long before they send in their applications. Students benefit from support, guidance and opportunities in the years before they apply. The Community of Support (COS) is an initiative of the Black Canadian Admissions Subcommittee (BCAS), formed November 2014, that seeks to increase outreach to Black Canadian students and ultimately increase the number of Black medical students at U of T.
COS meets these goals by providing opportunities for mentorship, job shadowing and research, as well as personalized guidance on admissions. COS launched on the St. George campus in March 2015, and has since attracted over 200 students from across Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec. A U of T-led initiative, COS opened its first chapter on the Scarborough campus the same month it launched, and has since opened six more chapters on university campuses across Ontario, with more to come.
Ike Okafor, Senior Officer of Service Learning and Diversity Outreach at the Office of Health Professions Student Affairs (OHPSA) and chair of BCAS knows that meeting our diversity goals is a complex task that involves continual relationship development and individualized support beginning long before students apply to the MD Program. “COS is positioned near the end of a ‘long-game’ diversity outreach plan that aims to level the playing field,” says Okafor. Outreach begins with high school students in the new Research Mentorship Program and the well-established Summer Mentorship Program (SMP). Engagement with these students continues during their undergraduate years through their involvement with COS, which is open to students regardless of whether they participated in SMP. In COS, they have access to mentorship opportunities and information that can guide them on the road to medical school or other health sciences.
COS is a partnership among OHPSA, Enrolment Services, Chief Diversity Officer Dr. Lisa Robinson, the U of T Black Medical Student Association and the Black Physicians’ Association of Ontario. Learn more about COS.
Read Spotlight COS student Iman Yousuf.
Related links
