{"id":232517,"date":"2025-07-03T10:40:20","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T14:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=232517"},"modified":"2025-07-03T10:53:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T14:53:06","slug":"national-impact-for-ct-ahec-and-its-urban-service-track-ahec-scholars-from-uconn-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/07\/national-impact-for-ct-ahec-and-its-urban-service-track-ahec-scholars-from-uconn-health\/","title":{"rendered":"National Impact for CT AHEC and its Urban Service Track\/AHEC Scholars from UConn Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI was amazed to see just how large of an organization AHEC really is,\u201d said Max Marks, UConn School of Dental Medicine student and Urban Service Track\/AHEC (UST\/AHEC) scholar alum. Marks was one of four UST\/AHEC alumni who attended the recent biennial AHEC (Area Health Education Centers) conference in Lexington, Kentucky. The theme of the conference was Racing Toward Health Workforce Solutions.<\/em> \u201cI could see that all the people at the conference shared a common goal of improving health in their communities, in addition to training the health care providers of tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National AHEC Organization (NAO) represents a network of more than 300 AHEC program offices and centers that serve over 85% of United States counties. Connecticut\u2019s AHEC office is located at UConn Health in Farmington. AHEC\u2019s mission is to enhance access to quality health care, particularly primary and preventive care, by improving the supply and distribution of health care professionals.<\/p>\n

\"Director
Director of the Connecticut AHEC, Petra Clark-Dufner traveled with the UST\/AHEC scholar alums from UConn’s medical and dental school to the national AHEC conference (CT AHEC Photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The two-year Urban Service Track\/AHEC Scholars (UST\/AHEC) program is one of the key initiatives of the UConn Health-based AHEC program. UST\/AHEC scholars include students from UConn Schools of Pharmacy, Nursing, Medicine, Dental Medicine, Social Work and Quinnipiac University\u2019s Physician Assistant program.<\/p>\n

UConn medical student and UST\/AHEC scholar alum, Julia Levin, also attended the conference and appreciates the opportunities extended to her as part of UST\/AHEC. \u00a0\u201cUST\/AHEC prepares future health care professionals to practice medicine beyond the confines of textbooks and lecture halls\u2014by connecting them with their communities and equipping them with the skills, perspective, and compassion needed to become truly effective, empathetic clinicians,\u201d said Levin.<\/p>\n

The director of the Connecticut AHEC, Petra Clark-Dufner, says that \u201cthrough the Urban Service Track, AHEC Scholars learn with, from and about each other.\u00a0 In addition to expanding their clinical\/patient care toolkit, Scholars learn and apply leadership and communication skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CT
Student panel at the national AHEC conference (Photo Credit: Abell Media).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The two UConn UST\/AHEC alum that were on stage at the conference were medical student Renee Taylor and dental medicine student Evan Perlroth. They participated in the conference\u2019s student plenary panel entitled \u201cIn full stride: Students leading workforce transformation<\/em>.\u201d Perlroth said that \u201cattending my first national conference and speaking on a panel during a plenary session was a unique experience. It was empowering to share my perspective as an AHEC scholar in front of leaders and other professionals nationally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbara O\u2019Neill, UConn School of Nursing UST\/AHEC coordinator, adds that the NAO student panel is just one of many examples of how the UST\/AHEC program provides a platform for interprofessional collaborative practice and educates students and professionals nationally. \u201cIt is important to be reminded that every member of the health care team is valuable, including the health professions student in training,\u201d says O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n

Perlroth sums up the benefits of the program well. \u201cUST\/AHEC has opened my eyes to a whole different side of health care that I was unaware of previously. \u00a0Without it, I would not be the health care student and future clinician I am today.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UST\/AHEC Scholars alumni from UConn’s dental and medical schools present at the National AHEC Organization Conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":232521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1715,2388,2166,1868,179,2233],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1873],"class_list":["post-232517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-impact","category-healthcare-workforce","category-sdm","category-meds","category-uconn-health","category-university-news"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 15:53:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232517"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232523,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232517\/revisions\/232523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/232521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232517"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=232517"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=232517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}