In 1996, the UF Medical Guild underwrote the UF Health Science Center’s Mini Medical School. Each Fall the Center for Precollegiate Education and Training (CPET) invites secondary science, health, and vocational teachers to attend a day-long program which focuses on current biomedical trends. Teachers have the opportunity to interact and to exchange ideas about medical education outreach. The teachers are exposed to advances in the medical sciences which are taken back to their colleagues and students.
In October 2023, the Mini Medical School presented its program at UF Shands. The theme was “Brain Matters! Neuroscience and Neurological Disorders.” Topics included “Pain Sensing”, “Fighting Neurodegenerative Diseases: Understanding their Genetics and Mechanisms”, and “Cognition and Aging.”
In November 2022, the Mini Medical School program was conducted in-person at UF Shands. The theme was “Tracking Health and Disease: Explorations in Epidemiology.” Topics included “Substance Use and HIV Epidemiology”, “One Health approaches to Zoonotic Disease Epidemiology”, “Cholera Conundrum”, and “Medical Geography and Spatial Epidemiology.”
The 2021 Mini Medical School program was delivered in an online format due to COVID-19 restrictions on in-person programming. A 3-part webinar series on “Understanding Adolescent Mental Health During the Pandemic” was presented to secondary science, health, and vocational teachers to broaden their knowledge of teenage mental health.