The Kennedy-Hopkins Scholars Mentor Program

The Kennedy-Hopkins Scholars Mentor Program is dedicated to improving the experience of minoritized, or underrepresented minorities in medicine, residents and fellows of Wake Forest University School of Medicine through mentoring relationships. Artina Dawkins, PhD, MPA, co-director of Diversity & Inclusion and program manager of the Orthopaedic Surgery Residency, founded the Kennedy-Hopkins Scholars Mentor Program based on her thorough research demonstrating that minority residents and fellows greatly benefit from having strong mentor relationships. She designed the program specifically to help them navigate and thrive in their medical training by pairing them with a self-selected faculty mentor.

In addition to improving the experiences of these residents and fellows, the Kennedy-Hopkins Program has evolved into a mechanism to recruit and retain underrepresented minority residents, fellows by exploring the power that relationships can have in the careers of medical professionals.

The three pillars of the program are mentor to mentee matching, community engagement and professional development. After much work and dedication, the program is now in its sixth year. The team started with mentees in four departments and now they have grown to mentees that are represented by 23 departments. The program matches a younger professional who is a ready recipient for information with a more experienced person, and so they're able to give guidance and be a sounding board. The mentor has likely experienced similar challenges or concerns that the younger professional may be navigating, so they are able to provide meaningful guidance.

The mentor program was named to honor the community impact and renowned mentorship of Dr. Charlie Kennedy and Dr. Larry Hopkins. According to Brenda Latham-Sadler, Vice Chief Academic Officer for Justice and Belonging at Advocate Health and Vice Dean of Justice and Belonging for Wake Forest University School of Medicine, they served not just as advisors, but as mentors impacting decades of students, staff, faculty, both at Wake and in the broader community. Recently, their impact was also reflected by the naming of the Kennedy-Hopkins Medical Building, a new facility at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist as it expanded services in East Winston-Salem.

The program was started to retain the residents and fellows at the School of Medicine, but it has grown to also be a recruitment tool. Many potential applicants have discovered the program and see there are people who look like them providing an established community of support. After six years of impact, Dawkins looks forward to continual program growth.

“We're always looking for more mentors for the program and community to help support our students, faculty and teammates,” said Dawkins. “We offer public programming that allows community folks as well as teammates to join, so we definitely are looking for new people. If anyone is interested in learning more, we'd love to have you.”