Program Director: Paula Cupertino, PhD

acupertino@kumc.edu

Program Co-Director: Maria Alonso, malonsol-

uaces@kumc.edu

Program Coordinator: Montserrat Jimenez,

mjimenez@kumc.edu

Summer Assistant

Coordinator: Jehieli Arteta

jartetajuarez@kumc.edu

Mailing Address:

4125 Rainbow Blvd. MS

1056 Kansas City, KS

66160

http://juntosks.org/

2014 Latino Internship in

Health Disparities Research

NOTES FROM DIRECTOR

Though minorities make up 25% of the U.S. population, they make up only 9% of nurses, 6% of physicians, and 5% of dentists. (The Sullivan Commission, 2004) Even fewer minorities serve as health science researchers – less than 5% of the country’s public health faculty are Black, and 7% are Latino. (Mitchell, 2006)

KUMC School of Medicine has been successful in implementing student-oriented programs that emphasize life sciences knowledge, basic science research, and even the importance of health disparities. Based on our existing medical and sci-ence education pipeline programs we know that engaging underrepresented mi-nority students in mentorship programs, direct training experiences, and prepa-ration for post-secondary education leads to an increase in enrollment in two and four year universities, graduate programs, and receipt of scholarships.

In 2014, OCED and JUNTOS renewed their partnership with support from the Health Care Foundation for Greater Kansas City and Mr. Murguia to maintain our Summer Health Disparities Internship. This year, we had a total of 13 high school students intern at Juntos, all Hispanic, between 10th grade and recent graduates. Besides our KU and UMKC undergraduate students we received two medical stu-dents from the University of Puerto Rico, Maite Iglesias, and Chelsea Fair.

Finally, we said goodbye to Victor Martinez, 6th year medical student from Cuer-nava, Mexico and welcomed Brenda Cartujano, for her 1 year community service rotation with Juntos.

2014 GCRC/JUNTOS High School Student Interns

HECTOR BERNAL “The Importance of Educating About Sleep Dep-rivation and Its Effects on the Body”

Hector graduated from Sumner Academy of Arts & Science . He is a mentor to the SAS Program. He will attend KCKCC this fall and will transfer to the Univer-sity of Kansas later on. Hector has a strong interest in medicine and wants to use his passion for technology to help people as a computer engineer.

Research Mentors: Liliana Abdualla-Martinez & Mariana Ramirez

ROGELIO GAMBOA “Awareness of

Dyslexia Among Students and

Teachers of the USD500 Kansas

School District”

Rogelio was born in El

Paso, Texas. He at-

tended Wyandotte

High School and grad-

uated as a Valedictori-

an while completing his Nursing Aid

Certification. He will begin fall clas-

ses at Donnelly College and plans to

transfer to the University of Missouri

-Kansas City where he will complete

the pre-med coursework to become

an oncologist.

Research Mentor: Johana Bravo & Victor Martinez

MARLEN ORTIZ “Assessing the Lev-els of Fluoride In-gestion Through Tap Water Con-sumption”

Marlen Ortiz was born in Kansas City, Kansas. She will be a junior at Sumner Academy of Arts and Sci-ences in the fall, from which she plans to graduate and later attend the University of Kansas. Marlen wants to major in Secondary Edu-cation with History and Govern-ment. She joined the JUNTOS group to have an experience of the medical field and truly enjoyed it.

Research Mentors: Montserrat Jimenez & Jehieli Arteta

IVONNE RAMIREZ “Assessing

the Levels of Fluoride Ingestion

Through Tap Water Consump-

tion”

Ivonne was born in Chihuahua,

Mexico. She graduated from

Wyandotte High School and

will attend Johnson County

Community College this fall to

continue her

education. She

wants to be-

come a certi-

fied nurse and

provide service

to the under-

served Latino

population.

Research Mentors: Montserrat Jimenez

& Jehieli Arteta

JUAN PABLO RAMIREZ

“Awareness of Dys-

lexia Among Stu-

dents and Teachers

of the USD500

Kansas School Dis-

trict”

Juan Pablo was born in Mexico and

moved to the US when he was 11

years old. He will be a Junior at

Northwest Shawnee High School

this fall. He is active in groups such

as the Track & Field team, Latinos

of Tomorrow, and Oasis; a church

group. He is at the top ten percent

of his class and is interested in ei-

ther mechanical or design engineer-

ing.

Research Mentor: Johana Bravo & Victor Martinez

STEPHANIE RODAS

“Awareness of Dys-

lexia Among Stu-

dents and Teachers

of the USD500

Kansas School Dis-

trict”

Stephanie graduated with honors from

Sumner Academy and was awarded her

Full IB diploma. In high school, she was

the parliamentarian of the National

Honor Society, treasurer of People to

People International, and varsity cap-

tain of the tennis team. She will attend

UMKC in the fall to double major in

Psychology and Biology and double

minor in French and Chemistry. Her

goal is to become a Neurologist.

Research Mentor: Johana Bravo & Victor Martinez

LUIS RODRI-GUEZ “The Im-

portance of Educating About Sleep Deprivation and Its Effects on the Body”

Luis graduated from Wyandotte High School and has participated in programs such as Wednesday Me-

dia, and the Summer Science Residen-tial by coordinating the development of short film projects. Working with health care professionals, Luis wants to pursue careers in Biology and Com-puter Science at UMKC.

Research Mentors: Mariana Ramirez & Liliana

Abdualla-Martinez

DAVE DIMACHKIE Dave will be starting his junior year this fall at the University of Kansas. At KU, Dave is working to-ward a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and is the di-rector of Development

for Delta Epsilon Mu, a profession-al, pre-health fra-ternity, and is a clinical volunteer at Heartland Community Health Center. At JUNTOS, Dave

worked with the new program VDS Pediatrics! Dave hopes to continue working closely with the underserved areas of Kan-sas by becoming either a family doctor or a general pediatri-cian.

IDAIMA CALDERON is start-

ing her fourth year as a Pre-

Medical student at UMKC, ma-

joring in Health Sciences. Her

goal is to finish her studies at

UMKC and continue on to med-

ical school and become an in-

ternal medicine physician

providing ser-

vices to under-

served minori-

ty populations.

In 2013, Idai-

ma received a

scholarship

from UMKC to

develop and

implemented

a research project. She chose

to base her research on the

Ventanilla de Salud Pediatrics

project at Juntos focusing on

child

obesity.

ANDROS

GARCIA

on his

5th sum-

mer with

Juntos, his work focused on

adapting PowerPoint Presen-

tations for Medical

Spanish into a

more interactive

lesson using Artic-

ulate. Currently

Andros will begin

his 4th semesters

at Boston Univer-

sity where he is

majoring in Health Science

while minoring in Business

and taking pre-med re-

quirements.

2014 G

CR

C H

igh S

chool

In

tern

FABIOLA HERNANDEZ is a Student Assistant at Juntos.

This year she will be a sen-ior at the Uni-versity of Kansas, grad-uating with a BA in Human Biology. Cur-rently she is collaborating with the A.M.I.G.A. Program which aims to refer women with mammogram resources and increase awareness and education on breast cancer to Latinas. Next year she plans on taking the MCAT and applying to Medical School.

KU Undergrad Student Interns

U.S– MEXICO

MEDICAL STUDENT

ROTATION

BRENDA CARTUJANO is from Cuernavaca, Mo-relos. She is currently in her 6th year of medical school at the Univer-sidad Autonoma del Es-tado de Morelos (UAEM). She started the community service program on July 2014. Upon completion, she would like to complete a residency here in the USA in Internal Medicine or Radi-ology. She will be working in the Ventanilla de Salud para Nin os pro-gram collaborating with the adoles-cent health research. The focus is to provide a culturally and linguistic ap-propriate community health program for Latino families with children in SW Kansas, and understand the knowledge and intention to use birth control among Latino adolescents. UMKC Undergrad

Student Intern

Boston University

Undergrad

Student Intern

Health Fairs

2014 Activity Highlights

Closing Ceremony The staff at JUNTOS had the stu-dents until July 10th. They were re-ceived with breakfast and final fare-well speeches, followed by a bioeth-ics debate activity to then head for their poster prep time at the Hemenway building. The students presented their team projects on which they vigorously worked for four weeks to the Preventive medi-cine faculty and staff, family, friends and the GCRC team. The day was finalized with the presenta-tion of diplomas and stipends to the students.

Multicultural Night

This special night to our interns took place 3 July 2014 . The different perfor-mances of folklore, dance, poetry, video, singing, act-ing, and fashion served as common denominators in a culturally diverse group of students. The audience was delighted with the swell ex-pression for the apprecia-tion of customs and tradi-tion through the arduous work that was invested and rehearsed weekly through-out the pro-gram.

Wyandotte County Tour

Amongst the tours taken, on 18 June 2014 the students took a tour around Wyan-dotte County with the pur-pose of learning about com-munity-focused centers and the respective resources and services that are offered. The locations visited were Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Kansas City, El Centro, Inc., Wyandotte County Communi-ty Health Council, the Hispan-ic Chamber of Commerce and the Mexican Consulate. The students also stopped by Lib-erty Memorial for lunch be-fore returning to KUMed.

One important highlight is the participation of our young interns in the health fairs in which they receive training to measure blood pressure, BMI, and blood glucose levels. Students also fill out registration form, intake forms, and were part of our newly inaugurated VDS Pediatrics! The students input was essential for JUNTOS takes great pride in serving the community.

Jennifer Jurado,15 was

born in El Paso, Texas. She

currently attends Sumner

Academy of Arts and Sci-

ence and hopes to attend

Western Washington Uni-

versity and major in

Marine Biology.

M a i t e I g l e s i a s

Maite was born in Puerto Rico and is the first

time she visits Kansas! She graduated with a

Bachelor of Science in Cellular and Molecular

Biology from the University of

Puerto Rico. This fall she will

be a second year medical stu-

dent and she wants to serve

her community as a general or

family physician. This summer

Maite worked closely with Dr.

Barral, an adolescent health

physician. She helped with lit-

erature reviews, designing and developing fly-

ers, surveys and consent forms for teenage girl

focus groups Teen pregnancy is Dr. Barral’s

current research project.

JUNTOS was delighted to

sponsor two first-year

medical students from San

Juan Bautista Medical

School in Puerto Rico. Dur-

ing the four week intern-

ship, the students worked

with a faculty staff in de-

veloping a research study.

Chelsea and Maite’s work

with the doctors was of

exceptional and most fruit-

ful contribution. We look

forward to having them

again in the coming year,

much luck to our future

physicians!

Andrea Trujillo, 17

Is originally from El Paso, Texas. She will be a senior at Wyandotte High School. Andrea wants to attend The University of Kansas to become a speech lan-guage pathologist and is current-ly taking dual-credit classes through KCK Community Col-lege. She is also going to get her certified Nurse Assistant Cer-tificate in the spring.

Chelsea Fair

Chelsea is a Kansas native and

we might see her one day as an

OBGYN physician. She graduat-

ed from UMKC with a double

major in Spanish and Chemistry.

Ms. Fair worked with Dr.

Ramaswamy by contributing to

the research ethics training manual, fidelity

evaluation, revised surveys, & edited the Eth-

nographic Research Plan. This is part of the

SHE program designed to reduce cervical can-

cer disparities amongst incarcerated women.

2014 Saturday Academy Student Interns

Alejandro Mendo-za, 17 is from Kan-sas City, KS. He is a 2014 University of Kansas talent search student. Alejandro would like to pursue a

career in civil or electrical engi-neering.

Edgar Cubillo-Ponce, 17 is originally from Los Ange-les, California. Edgar is a straight- A student while taking college credit courses. He plans to at-tend CalTech University and acquire a double ma-jor in aerospace and bio-

medical engineering.

Alex Her, 16 is an upcoming junior at-tending Wyandotte High. Attending the Saturday Acad-emy and the Sum-mer Science Acade-my has helped him

become a great leader to Alex’s peers. His dream is to become a firefighter to protect and serve his community for the Kansas City Kansas Fire Department .

Carolina Bueno, 16 was born in Mexico, moved to Kansas her freshman year. She participated in Sum-mer Science Academy at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence. Her goal is to become

a Jayhawk. She would like to pursuit a career in medicine as a surgeon.

Med Students From Puerto Rico

IF INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING AND BEING PART OF THE INTERN-

SHIP, YOU CAN FIND MORE INFORMATION AT WWW.JUNTOSKS.ORG

OR FOLLOW THE STEPS BELOW.

To apply for the 2015 Latino Research Internship in Health Disparities,

please submit:

Signed application form

Essay

List of extracurricular activities and/or resume/CV

Unofficial copy of report card/transcript

Letter of recommendation

Return completed application via email to jbravodelosrios@kumc.edu.

Emails should indicate “2015 Internship Application” in subject line.

** We highly encourage applicants to send their documenta-

tion via email **

You can also mail materials to the following address:

Johana Bravo de los Rios

University of Kansas Medical Center

Department of Preventive Medicine & Public

Health

Mail Stop 1056

4125 Rainbow Blvd.

Kansas City, KS 66160

For any additional questions, contact Johana Bravo de los Rios at jbra-

vodelosrios@kumc.edu or at (913) 945-7874

PARTNERS & FUNDERS

We would like to thank the Office of Cultural Enhancement and Diversity (OCED), and Mr. Ramon

Murguia for their support.

Liliana Abdualla-Martinez

Victor Martinez Mariana Ramirez,

MSW

Johana Bravo , MPH

To our mentors,

Romina Barral, MD

Megha Ramaswamy,

PhD, MPH