AAMC Reporter: October 2009

Man to Man, Students Inspire Youth

In many ways, Charleston, S.C., is a tale of two cities. Visitors know the charming, stately rows of shops and restaurants, the venerated battlefields and historical sites, the streets lined with Palmetto and oak that drip with Spanish moss. As with many cities, however, Charleston has a second story to tell, a shadowy narrative rife with crime, poverty, and dead ends.

"Charleston is a beautiful place, but it's pretty rough," said Garrett Mann, a local resident. "Charleston has a huge drug problem, and a huge STD problem. There are many people there who don't feel like they have any options."

South Carolina's second-largest city is also the primary medical hub for the eastern half of the state. Among other institutions, the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) calls downtown Charleston home.

In 2007, Vandy Gaffney II, then a second-year medical student at MUSC, looked at inner-city Charleston's predominantly black, predominantly low-income neighborhoods, and something clicked. Why not use his own experiences, and those of his fellow students, to help others?

Gaffney, now a fourth-year medical student, started A Gentleman and A Scholar, a program that encourages young black males in the Charleston area to pursue careers in medicine or another health profession. Virtually every medical school has some kind of mentoring or diversity-building program, but A Gentleman and A Scholar may be unique for specifically reaching out to black males in the local community.

"My classmates and I saw a need for a program that did what our parents and mentors did for us," Gaffney said. "Our goal is the motivation of young men from adolescence to a successful and competent adulthood, whether they pursue medicine or another health profession or not."

According to AAMC statistics, black males accounted for 2 percent of 2008 medical school matriculants. Deborah Deas, M.D., M.P.H., MUSC senior associate dean for diversity and the faculty advisor for A Gentleman and a Scholar, said these kinds of statistics virtually scream for attention.

"We needed to create a firm pipeline to medical school [for black males]," Deas said. "And who better to help build that pipeline than those men who made it through?"

Despite the statistics, few, if any, other medical school programs attempt to engage solely this population.

"This program is pretty unusual, if not unique, because it reaches out to young black male students in the community and encourages them over long periods of time to not only consider a career in medicine, but to stay on a path of growth and achievement," said Lily May Johnson, AAMC manager of constituent diversity services. "You cannot put a price on the valuable lessons and skills these mentors provide to a group of young men who desperately need them."

Gaffney, who said 34 students have gone through the program, noted that mentors offer general guidance as well as specific advice on topics like MCAT® exam preparation. Before a young man becomes a mentee, parents or guardians sign agreements allowing mentors to contact them if grades begin to slip.

"What the parents have highlighted is their sons becoming more goal-directed," Deas said. "They tend to procrastinate less when they get home in the afternoon, because they know their mentors will be calling to see if they are doing their work. The parents don't have to be on their backs as much."

A mentor's own story can provide valuable bona fides when interacting with disadvantaged young people looking for a way—any way—out of dire circumstances.

"All that is respected in the streets is money. It doesn't matter what's behind it, where it came from," said Mann, an Atlanta native who is a program mentor and received his master of health administration degree from MUSC. "Kids see that their mom is poor, that their dad isn't around, and they want to start making money. Guys like me who came from humble backgrounds can show them that you can get to where you want to go with hard work and without resorting to selling drugs or other illegal means."

Like proud uncles, Gaffney and Mann talk about the young lives they have helped mold. There is the undergraduate and would-be medical student at The Citadel in Charleston, who was having trouble fitting in with his predominantly white classmates. And then there was the painfully introverted ninth grader whose father had just abandoned him. Mann recalls meeting a 12-year-old who, upon learning Mann was a mentor, presented him with a 10-page career plan.

There is a good-cop, bad-cop dynamic to the group's approach. Last Father's Day, Mann cooked dinner for the mentees who he said "do not deal with their fathers."

"We had spaghetti and just kicked it until after 10 at night," Mann said. "It's important for them to know someone is there for them."

On the flip side, remembering the introverted ninth grader, Gaffney recalls that "we challenged him a little bit. We made him speak in public, but we also comforted him along the way. He has a better self-esteem now." There are also students who dream of being a doctor but may not understand what that truly entails.

"There was a guy making Cs in college who wanted to go to medical school," Mann recalled. "I sat him down and told him, straight up, 'this isn't going to work.' I told him that if he got his grades up, I'd buy him an MCAT® preparation book. Sure enough, he got his grades up, and I stuck by my promise. I had to eat ramen noodles for the rest of the week, but it was worth it."

It is still too early to tell whether the program will funnel more students to MUSC, or to health professions schools in general. However, one college-age mentee is hoping to go to MUSC "as a direct result of A Gentleman and A Scholar," Mann said. For now, the program can boast having put one student into a health professions school: former mentee Aaron Haire is attending the Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine.

"I would not have gotten there as quickly without A Gentleman and A Scholar," said Haire, a native of Orangeburg, S.C. "A lot of students don't realize how time-sensitive things are or how you need to have your records in order. Someone from the MUSC dean's office spoke to us once, about how he came from nothing, basically, and rose to success. I saw a lot of similarities between him and me."

Deas said the program is making an impact.

"Not only are we providing students with the necessary skills for a career in medicine, they are being held accountable," Deas said. "All in all, this has really been precedent-setting, both for our school and for these students and their families."

—By Scott Harris