Co-founders Adom (Addie) Netsanet (left) and Lynn Schichtel (right) bonded over a strong passion for facilitating a synergetic relationship between effective healthcare delivery and access to educational opportunities in healthcare for underrepresented youth from vulnerable populations. After graduating from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2019 with B.A.s in Molecular Cellular Developmental Biology and Integrative Physiology, respectively, Addie and Lynn sought out creative solutions to enhance the intersection between exceptional healthcare delivery and creating opportunity access for URM students. With this goal in mind, and strong personal connections to this cause, Addie and Lynn founded the Pre-Health Achievement Association (PHAA) from the philosophy that those who are fortunate enough to be successful in their respective fields have a responsibility to mentor and uplift those who will come after them, and that it is never too early to begin paying it forward.
More About Addie
Addie began working towards effectively serving diverse patient populations through culturally cognizant healthcare delivery in 2017 as an Undergraduate Pre Health Program (UPP) fellow at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Here, she gained experience in advocating for underserved populations within her selected field of medicine through mentorship and volunteer opportunities. As a UPP fellow, Addie spearheaded the creation of the Civic Engagement Committee and remains involved with the professional development of UPP's current cohorts.
Later, Addie completed a Quality Improvement project to streamline safe and effective patient discharges at the University of Colorado Hospital. During this experience, Addie also pursued a separate personal video project to empower URM youth who are interested in entering the healthcare field. Addie's efforts culminated in the nomination for, and subsequent awarding of, the Kaiser Permanente Student of the Year Award in 2019.
As part of her dedication to empowering premedical students, you can also watch a recent panel about financial literacy in medical education that Addie took part in as a panelist here: https://stanford.zoom.us/rec/share/6MBtBI3T0EdOYpHV9kTRGYM_Q5Smaaa8gSAe__NYn0z-dU8kDBCw7OrpSGmg68SE?startTime=1589670577000, or an additional medical education panel titled 'Black Pain Matters' here: https://www.kaptest.com/blogs/med-educators/post/black-pain-matters?fbclid=IwAR3S0CNDVP-BgXsapFmBwpisx591rHsE1s5GSRIIFpGPRqjevNyaqLYd1Xo
As an undergraduate student, Addie was intimately involved with, and held executive positions in, Global Medical Brigades, African Student Association, and SWAP English-as-a-Second-Language Learning Cooperative. Addie also represented Kaplan, Inc. as a Student Brand Ambassador, and later a multi-regional Lead Student Brand Ambassador. Throughout her time at CU Boulder, Addie completed research in Neuroscience, which culminated in the production of an investigative independent study in her final year.
You can learn more about Addie's undergraduate path to medical school in an interview by Crimson Education here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcDAVRqwBTc
Addie showed an interest in advocating for those who cannot easily advocate for themselves as early as high school, where she pursued advanced science courses as an International Baccalaureate scholar while using her determination to afford a voice to young Colorado voters. One of her efforts to represent young voters, who are routinely underrepresented, includes presenting a speech at Capitol Hill in support of a voting access bill that was subsequently passed into law: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/colorado-is-awesome_b_3368288?slideshow=true#gallery/5be26510e4b03708a48111e9/0
Currently, Addie is a first-year medical student attending the University of Colorado School of Medicine as a Dean's Distinguished Scholar. Here, Addie founded the Physicians for Human Rights Student Chapter at CUSOM, where she currently serves as Co-President. Addie was also elected as the American Medical Association Representative for CUSOM through the Colorado Medical Society, where she has the opportunity to write, vote on, and discuss policies that impact patients and the greater medical community.
In her free time, Addie serves as a student leader at the DAWN Cardiology Clinic, a volunteer-based free clinic. She also continues to represent Kaplan, Inc. as a Medical Student Brand Ambassador.
Finally, Addie is pursuing novel research in congenital cardiopulmonary diseases at the Colorado Children's Hospital Pediatric Heart and Lung Center, while continuing research from her post-graduate gap year in hemorrhagic and stroke risk in cardiac patients on anticoagulant therapy under the mentorship of renowned cardiac electrophysiologist, Dr. William Choe.
Addie's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adom-netsanet-4a097b13b/
More About Lynn
As an undergraduate, Lynn worked as a research assistant for the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory gaining experience with overnight sleep studying, sleep scoring and EEGs. As a research assistant she also worked at the Clinical Translational Research Center (CTRC) to assist on the assessment of subjects. Lynn also worked as a teaching assistant for General Biology during her second year as an undergraduate, where she assisted students in class and held weekly office hours to tutor student.
In addition to earning her bachelor’s degree in Integrative Physiology, Lynn earned her certificate in Public Health which first sparked her interest in serving diverse patient populations as a future physician assistant (PA). In 2018, Lynn went on a study tour with the Leeds Scholar program to volunteer in food insecure areas and to research obesity and malnutrition in these areas. For the past two years, Lynn has also been a volunteer for the Children’s Program at Emergency Family Assistance Association (EFAA), an organization that provides temporary housing for families experiencing homelessness. Through these experiences, Lynn recognized the importance of increasing diversity in health professions alongside her goals of increasing access to healthcare in underserved populations.
Lynn also has experience working as certified nurse aide (CNA). She earned her CNA license in 2018 and began working full-time over the summer and part-time during the school year at Flatirons Health and Rehab.
More recently, Lynn was working as a medical assistant in Family Medicine and at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains during her gap year between undergrad and PA school. She has had exposure to a wide range of populations and hopes to highlight those skills to make a greater impact for the medically underserved while practicing socially sensitive care. As a future PA, she aspires to use her skills as a bilingual Cantonese speaker to help increase access to healthcare in Chinese-immigrant populations. Currently, Lynn is a first-year PA student attending Dominican University in the greater Chicago area. She has the goal of becoming a primary care PA working in disadvantaged communities.
Lynn's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynn-schichtel-2b82731a5/