The Health P.A.S.S. Program is a program that introduces you to the multitude of areas in the medical field. This program introduced me into public health and health care administration and now I am applying for graduate school at Des Moines University for their Masters program there. Ten students get chosen from applicants around the US (I just looked at the website and the changed it to 12 now). "Preference will be given to qualified applicants from populations under-represented in medicine and health care, including under-represented minority, low-income and/or first-generation college students." (The reason for this is that Des Moines University is known to be a great school except for the lack of diversity so this program is a "marketing" tool kind of) It is a three week program in the summer and it is free!
Some things I got to experience during my time there were different applicable and hands on workshops like learning how to suture (part of surgery), scrubbing up for surgery, learning how to make a cast and take it off. We got to use a lot of their simulation dummies to learn about different heart conditions, pregnancies, and surgeries. We got to sit in a lecture hall with physician assistants and their cadaver anatomy lab and got to shadow multiple times with various medical professionals. We sat in information sessions on professions in medicine and the sciences and how to plan and the details of how to apply and the do's and don'ts of applying to a post-undergraduate program, which included mock interviews with real staff members that are on the application board and several panels with staff and students.
There's even more I can say about the program but overall, Des Moines University took care of the students very well and definitely convinced me that this is the school I want to be at. I made some life long friends there that I still talk to today and learn from. All ten students that were in my program all ended up applying for Des Moines University and I know two of them go there now! Let me know if you have any other questions or comments!
This year's application is due Feb 15, 2015
More details at: http://www.dmu.edu/admission/healthpass/