Footnotes - Fall 2023 - 21

Summer After First Year: Kaiser
Permanente's Introduction to
Integrated Healthcare Summer
Program
By Netanya Flores, TUSPM Class of 2026
The summer before your second year of podiatric medical
school many people advise against studying or immersing
yourself in educational endeavors. But when there's an
opportunity such as Kaiser Permanente's Introduction to
Integrated Healthcare Summer Program (IIHC), one must at
least consider applying, especially as it pertains to improving
culturally sensitive care for our future patients.
Kaiser Permanente is considered one of the largest and
leading healthcare systems in the United States. They
function off of a membership only and direct, prepaid
payment system for their patients. They employ thousands
of healthcare providers across the country and are especially
involved in the rapid use of technology in clinical settings.
I was one of sixty medical students participating in the
two sessions offered for the Summer of 2023. Kaiser
Permanente's IIHC officially celebrated its 10th year in a
row as a program that offers successful first year medical
students the chance to learn about their integrated healthcare
consortium. The program is broken up into two separate
sessions that offer their own range of talks and workshops for
students. A number of these workshops were geared towards
preparing students to understand what it would be like to not
only work within a team of healthcare professionals, but to
FALL 2023
also provide insight into the way Kaiser Permanente runs its
residency programs and clinics.
At first, I was skeptical as to how any of this information
could be useful to a podiatry student. I also started conjuring
up different percentages as to what my chances were as
" just a podiatry student " compared to the other allopathic
and osteopathic student applicants. I sent in the application
and got adjusted to the rigorous nature of the Fall semester
of first year. It is always an adjustment period no matter
if you had just recently graduated or had taken one or a
few gap years off. Months passed before I recalled that I
had even applied to the program. When I saw that I had
been accepted to be a part of the sessions, I knew it was an
opportunity for me to represent podiatric medicine in this
dominated program of MD/DO students.
Examples of workshops included conversations on
intersecting professionalism to personal life and
understanding the importance of financial literacy as a
healthcare professional during and after schooling. The
clinical directors heading the workshops shared stories of
their own experiences in the operating room and clinical
settings as they worked with their teams. There were
weekly clinical case assignments that critically asked our
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Footnotes - Fall 2023

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