The AHEC (Area Health Education Center) Scholars program is a valuable two-year initiative crafted to enrich and broaden the healthcare training of students, specifically focusing on rural and underserved populations. Aspiring AHEC Scholars are required to dedicate a minimum of 40 hours each year to both educational and clinical training. This commitment culminates in a total of 80 educational hours and 80 clinical hours throughout the duration of the two-year program. The AHEC Scholars Program is designed with flexibility in mind, offering various pathways to meet these essential program requirements, which we will explore in detail below.
To streamline your participation, the AHEC Scholars Program provides an AHEC Scholars Online Platform. This platform serves as your central hub for submitting completed materials for approval, monitoring your progress through your gradebook, and engaging with fellow scholars and AHEC staff. Upon acceptance into the program, you should have received an invitation to enroll in this Online Platform, typically detailed in your “Welcome to AHEC Scholars!” email. Should you encounter any difficulties logging in or require assistance with your login credentials, please reach out to Mandy Hedstrom at [email protected] for prompt support.
Educational Hours: Flexible Learning Pathways
A key component of the AHEC Scholars program is the educational training, which encompasses eight core topic areas vital for healthcare professionals serving underserved communities. These areas include: Interprofessional Education, Behavioral Health Integration, Social Determinants of Health, Cultural Competency, Practice Transformation, Connecting Communities & Supporting Health Professionals, Virtual Learning & Telehealth, and Current and Emerging Health Issues. To successfully complete the AHEC Scholars program, participants must accumulate a minimum of 40 hours of elective educational training each academic year, totaling 80 hours over the two-year program.
Understanding the demanding schedules of healthcare students, the AHEC Scholars program offers diverse and accessible pathways to fulfill this educational requirement. Scholars can choose from credit-bearing academic options, non-credit online platform modules, or a combination of both, ensuring that the educational component is manageable alongside their existing academic commitments.
Academic Course Pathway
For students who prefer structured learning and academic credit, enrolling in an approved Interprofessional Education (IPE) course is an excellent pathway. Any approved IPE course with a credit value of 1.0 or higher is recognized as fulfilling the 40-hour educational learning requirement for a single academic year. A comprehensive list of approved courses is readily available for enrolled scholars. Students opting for this pathway are required to submit an academic course log at the conclusion of the semester in which they complete the course, ensuring proper credit allocation within the AHEC Scholars program.
If you have previously completed an IPE course that comprehensively addresses the majority or all of the eight core topic areas and believe it should count towards your AHEC Scholars educational requirement, you can request an evaluation. Simply email the course syllabus to the AHEC Scholars Program Staff at [email protected] for review and approval.
Online Platform Learning Pathway
Scholars who thrive in self-directed learning environments can leverage the AHEC Scholars Online Platform to meet their educational hour requirements. This platform is rich with educational activities covering each of the core topic areas, offering a variety of engaging content such as Ted Talks, Podcasts, Webinars, and more. To receive credit for activities completed on the Online Platform, scholars are required to submit a brief evaluation after each activity. Upon submission, the completed hours are automatically recorded in the scholar’s gradebook, providing a seamless tracking system for their progress.
In addition to the structured content on the Online Platform, AHEC Scholars have the flexibility to submit relevant IPE experiences for approval. This pathway recognizes that valuable learning can occur outside of formal courses or online modules. Any conference, presentation, training session, webinar, continuing education event, or similar experience that aligns with at least one of the core topic areas can be considered for educational hour credit. To further assist scholars in identifying pre-approved opportunities, the AHEC Scholars Calendar is a valuable resource, listing upcoming events that have already been vetted for program relevance.
Check out the tutorial videos for more explanation!
Clinical Hours: Community-Based Service Pathway
For most health professions students, clinical hours are an integral part of their academic curriculum, often exceeding 40 hours per semester. Recognizing this, the AHEC Scholars program integrates seamlessly with existing clinical training. If your academic program already mandates at least 40 hours per academic year of interprofessional clinical or community-based work, you likely will not need to complete additional clinical hours specifically for the AHEC Scholars program. However, it is crucial to confirm that your program meets the interdisciplinary criteria outlined below. In situations where your academic program does not inherently include clinical or community-based rotations with a direct service component, it is essential to arrange such an opportunity with your faculty advisor PRIOR to formally applying to the AHEC Scholars program. This proactive approach ensures that all program requirements can be met throughout your participation.
The following criteria define what activities qualify for clinical hours within the AHEC Scholars program:
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Interdisciplinary Interaction: All clinical hours must be demonstrably interdisciplinary. This means you must actively engage and collaborate with at least one other health professional or a health profession student from a different discipline during your clinical experiences. This interprofessional collaboration is a cornerstone of the AHEC Scholars program, reflecting real-world healthcare settings.
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Direct Health Service Delivery: To qualify as clinical hours, the experience must involve the delivery of a health service to individuals or communities. This emphasizes the practical application of your skills and knowledge in a service-oriented context. Community-based experiences, such as health fairs, practicums, internships, and job shadowing, can also be counted as clinical hours, provided that a health service is delivered and the experience is interdisciplinary in nature. This broad definition ensures that a wide range of service-learning activities can contribute to the clinical hour requirement.
At the end of each academic year, all AHEC Scholars are required to submit a Clinical Hours Log through the AHEC Scholars Online Platform. This log serves as a formal record of your completed clinical hours and ensures program compliance.
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Total Clinical Hours: In your Clinical Hours Log, you must indicate the total number of clinical hours you completed over the academic year. It is important to list the actual clinical hour amount, even if it exceeds the 40-hour minimum clinical requirement for AHEC Scholars. This comprehensive reporting helps the program track the overall engagement of its scholars.
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Clinical Site Details: For each clinical site where you completed hours, you must provide the site name and your best estimate of the number of hours spent at that location. If you completed clinical hours at multiple sites, each site should be listed separately in your log.
Professionalism: Essential Values and Program Expectations
Professionalism is a foundational element of healthcare practice and is deeply embedded within the AHEC Scholars Program. Certain core values are universally applicable across all healthcare disciplines and are expected of all AHEC Scholars. These fundamental values encompass moral principles such as honesty, respect, integrity, and trustworthiness. They also include values specific to the healthcare professions, such as patient confidentiality and self-determination, societal values like a commitment to excellence and cultural awareness, and personal humanistic values such as empathy and compassion. Throughout your participation in the AHEC Scholars Program, you will engage in interdisciplinary discussions on complex health topics. It is expected that these universal values of professionalism will be consistently demonstrated in all interactions and discussions.
Adherence to program deadlines and the timely submission of required documentation are also crucial aspects of professionalism and are essential for maintaining eligibility in the program. To ensure clear communication and support, the AHEC Scholars program employs a 3-mark system to address instances of non-responsiveness regarding documentation. Initially, the AHEC Scholars team will reach out to the scholar directly as a first reminder to submit necessary documentation (1st mark). If there is still no response, a second outreach will be made, contacting both the scholar and their program contact to ensure awareness and provide additional support (2nd mark). Finally, if necessary, the scholar will receive a final warning (3rd mark). If no response is received after this final warning, the scholar will, unfortunately, be dropped from the AHEC Scholars program. Therefore, it is imperative to check your email regularly for communications from the AHEC Scholars leadership team and your assigned AHEC Scholars advisor to stay informed and meet all program requirements promptly.
