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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1511405
This article is part of the Research Topic Widening Participation and Access to Medicine as a Career View all articles
Doctor for a Day: The Impact of a Health Professions Enrichment Program on Self-Efficacy
Provisionally accepted
Celeste Coler 1*
Kareena Patel 1
A.J. Balatico 2
Kumhee Ro 3 Joshua Villarreal 4 Nora Coronado 1 Estell Williams 5- 1 School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States
- 2 University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States
- 3 College of Nursing, Seattle University, Seattle, United States
- 4 School of Pharmacy, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States
- 5 Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States
Health profession enrichment programs for underrepresented minority students are crucial to supporting students' interest in healthcare careers and improving preparedness for important academic and professional milestones. Doctor for a Day, an enrichment program at the University of Washington School of Medicine, hosts monthly events where underrepresented kindergarten-12 th grade students are exposed to careers in medicine by healthcare professionals from diverse backgrounds. This study investigates to what extent participation in Doctor for a Day programming improves self-efficacy using a survey study of 958 students who attended at least one Doctor for a Day event between 2017 and 2023. Using an evaluation tool composed of six questions, our results demonstrate that participation in Doctor for a Day programming increases self-efficacy and interest in medicine as a career. Analysis of these results found significant differences in responses based on grade level, with students in high school demonstrating the largest improvement in self-efficacy. These findings underscore the value of such enrichment programs and offer insights for the development of similar initiatives.
Keywords: diversity1, self-efficacy2, mentorship3, healthcare4, medicine5, underrepresented6, outreach7
Received: 14 Oct 2024; Accepted: 13 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Coler, Patel, Balatico, Ro, Villarreal, Coronado and Williams. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Celeste Coler, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, 98195, Washington, United States
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