Office for Community Centered Medical Education

Program Type

SURGH

Organization Name

Office for Community-Centered Medical Education (OCCME)

Internship Location

Boston, MA

Organization

The Office for Community-Centered Medical Education (OCCME) at Harvard, launched in 2021, enables and fosters meaningful engagement between students and faculty and local community-based organizations (CBOs) and community health centers (CHCs), with a focus on Roxbury, Mission Hill, and Jamaica Plain.

Recognizing the logic behind situating the practice of medicine within social contexts—and the historical patterns that lead to real health consequences for patients and communities—Harvard Medical School has repeatedly launched offices aimed at understanding and addressing these issues. OCCME is the newest such office, and its future success depends on understanding its predecessors.

This internship will involve a historical analysis of primary and secondary sources exploring past initiatives. These may include efforts to address racism in the United States, as well as work addressing inequity abroad through what was once called “international health” and is now “global health.”

This analysis is important because it will illuminate why such initiatives were created and, critically, why and how they eventually ended or transitioned—an essential question for the field today.

Position Overview

The intern will be supported in accessing a range of primary sources related to past Harvard Medical School offices and initiatives. They will also review a broad set of published articles spanning the last century.

Additionally, the internship includes qualitative analysis of interviews with long-serving Harvard faculty who possess institutional memory of these efforts—such as Dr. Nancy Oriol, former Dean of Students, founder of The Family Van and MedScience, and now senior advisor to OCCME.

Project Details

The intern will engage in historical and qualitative research to map out the institutional evolution of community- and equity-focused initiatives at Harvard Medical School. This work includes using archives, literature, and oral histories to understand:
• Why past initiatives were launched
• How they operated
• Why they were disbanded or transitioned

The project will result in a comprehensive manuscript summarizing findings, with the potential for a peer-reviewed publication if time allows.

Intern Responsibilities

• Conduct an inventory of historic documents available in Countway Library
• Conduct online literature searches for all relevant articles on Harvard Medical School’s equity and community-centered initiatives
• Submit an IRB to allow recording and analysis of interviews
• Interview available and relevant faculty (e.g., Nancy Oriol)
• Conduct qualitative analysis of interviews
• Prepare a manuscript summarizing all findings (primary deliverable)
• (Optional, time permitting) Prepare an article for peer-reviewed publication

Qualifications

• Experience with online literature searches and qualitative analysis
• Interest in the history of inequities and Harvard Medical School
• Ability to translate findings into concise, readable text
• Maturity, professionalism, and patience

Learning Outcomes

• Experience submitting an IRB
• Skills in conducting historical and qualitative analysis
• Preparation of a manuscript suitable for internal or academic dissemination

Nature of Internship

Literature Review

Keywords

History, inequity, qualitative research

Additional Onboarding for Selected Intern(s)

CITI training and IRB submission will be required.

Work Environment

Hybrid — intern must be in person at least 2 days per week.