AHEC SCHOLARS STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

"My journey as a Doctor of Nurse Practice-Family Nurse Practitioner (DNP-FNP) student at the University of Utah and a future healthcare provider started as an immigrant from a rural town of Siliguri, India to the United States of America. Like every immigrant, this was a dream come true.

After moving to the U.S., I continued my passion for healthcare at Southern Utah University. Through the SUU Rural Health Scholar program, I received various support and guidance to be accepted into the health-related graduate program. SUU Rural Health Scholars is an excellent program directly supporting undergraduate SUU students in getting accepted into different health-related graduate schools. The program has enabled countless students to be taken in multiple health-related graduate programs in Medical, Dental, Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant, Occupational and Physical Therapist, etc. I am extremely fortunate to have such a program in rural southern Utah that gave me the resources I needed to be accepted into the

University of Utah DNP-FNP program, one of the nation’s top universities. As a DNP-FNP student at the University of Utah, I am also a Utah AHEC (Area Health Education Center) scholar. It is an excellent program for healthcare professional students who are interested in meeting the health needs of Utah’s underserved rural and urban populations. Being in this excellent curriculum has enabled me to understand the complex U.S. healthcare system and various social determinants that affect an individual's health. Utah AHEC achieves its goals of serving professional healthcare students, including myself, by conducting the annual primary care summit (my favorite), several book discussions focused on social determinants of health every semester, a minimum of 80 hours of clinical at the rural and underserved population, access to grants for any research that affects the underserved population in Utah and many other extracurricular activities related to healthcare needs of the underserved population. Utah AHEC also provides healthcare students to get actively involved in positively impacting the health outcome for underserved populations.

During the program, Utah AHEC also assigns a mentor to enable the students to find all the right resources to be successful. I am extremely fortunate that Rita Osborn, Executive Director of Southern Utah AHEC, accepted to mentor me. She has been very gracious in helping me find all the resources I need to be a healthcare provider. I am confident that through the current Utah AHEC program, I will gain enough resources to positively impact the healthcare outcome in Utah’s underserved rural and urban populations as a healthcare provider."

- Vishant Thapa, DNP-FNP student