PURCH Pathway

Discover the PURCH Pathway

Every PURCH student completes at PURCH Pathway as part of the PURCH Track. Though every UMass Chan medical student completes a Pathway Project as part of their medical school education, our program is different.

How does the PURCH Pathway experience differ from the general UMass Chan pathway programs?

  • PURCH students do not choose one of the pathways offered at the main campus and instead will participate in the PURCH Pathway as part of the PURCH Track.
  • The PURCH Pathway is tailored to reflect the community centered, health equity focused mission of the program.
  • The PURCH Pathway is built around a curriculum covering community advocacy, research methods and social determinants of health.
  • PURCH students will partner with a local community organization to create a longitudinal project they will complete over their 4 years of medical school.
Nothing felt quite as rewarding in this Venture as when I was able to attend the New England Rural Health Association’s annual conference. I came away from this conference with an understanding that being part of this venture has connected me to a much larger movement of organizations aiming to achieve equity for communities living outside large, metropolitan areas.
Alix Pupo Wiss, Class 2026

PURCH Pathway Curriculum

The PURCH pathway curriculum is designed to both provide a background in the ways in which societal and environmental forces impact vulnerable communities and provide the students with tools they can use to assess and address community needs.

Examples of teaching sessions include:

  • Vulnerable Populations
  • The Socioecological Model
  • Health Equity
  • Culture, Community and Context
  • Qualitative Research Methods
  • Community Health Needs Assessment

PURCH Pathway Ventures

For the PURCH Pathway Ventures students will collaborate with a local community organization to address a healthcare need within the community. As part of this collaboration between students and community partners, students will participate in community organizations’ projects that are designed to provide real value to the partnering organizations in meeting community needs.

During the first meeting with our Pathway Ventures’s newly formed task force, we were asked about the background research on surveying provider attitudes towards harm reduction. Fortunately, we had a literature review in our back pocket and we were able to share that information with the community partners. Even though we lack the years of experience in this field, having the skills to perform an in-depth literature review proved to be valuable and translatable to the needs of the organization.
Liz Irvin, Class 2026

PURCH Pathway Ventures timeline:

Year 1
  • Meet with community partners
  • Define or redefine ideas for projects needed by the community organizations
  • Complete work plans on how to serve community organizations and advance initiatives
  • Literature search on community partner area of interest
Year 2
  • Continue to work on community organization’s project, define target population, community needs, etc. 
  • Refine work plan
  • Oral presentation on current state of community organization partnership and project
Year 3
  • Dedicated 2 week pathway elective to engage with community partner organization and advance community project
  • Persuasive writing assignment - letter to the editor, op-ed etc.
Year 4
  • Complete partnership with community organization
  • Submit a Scholarly work on community project which can be in the form of an advocacy white paper or manuscript for publication etc. 
The most rewarding aspect of my involvement with the Baystate Springfield Educational Partnership (BSEP) has been witnessing the profound impact it has had on countless students. BSEP acts as a crucial resource for many young adults, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, by introducing them to healthcare careers they might never have otherwise encountered. Having grown up in an extremely rural community in Western Massachusetts, I often reflect on how a program like BSEP could have been transformative for myself and my peers, who had very limited exposure to healthcare. I have been honored to be a part of such an important program while at Baystate.
Eli Brennan, Class of 2026

Examples of PURCH Pathway Ventures:

Class of 2026
  • Estoy Aqui- Addressing Suicide through a Community and Upstream Prevention Lens
  • ReGreen Springfield- This venture will examine the relationship between trees and urban populations, using Springfield as a living laboratory:
  • Hilltown Community Health Center- This venture will collect information and build community profiles and needs to help HCHC provide culturally and linguistically appropriate health care to these populations.
  • Baystate Health Department of Family Medicine- Provides the opportunity for a student to further explore SDOH issues that affect rural communities that they would like to explore/understand
  • Quaboag Connector/Quaboag Valley CDC- Addressing access to reliable, affordable transportation as a social determinant of health in the Quaboag Valley and other rural areas
  • Wellness on Wheels- WoW Bus Assessment & Implementation of Mental Health Prevention Education Resources and Services:
  • Bay Path University/Baystate Medical- This project is an international interprofessional program where students from different disciplines come together and create a community relationship with a community in Ghana Africa.
  • Baystate Springfield Educational Partnership (BSEP)- Health Career Exploration for students and parents
  • Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts- Cannabis Poisoning

Class of 2027
  • Department of Healthcare Delivery and Population Sciences; Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine- Lung Cancer screening and how to engage and navigate populations from diverse backgrounds and multiple barriers to accessing screening
  • Alianza Domestic Violence Services- engaging students in the design of Alianza’s potential intervention and prevention strategies to reduce teen dating and intimate partner violence, in partnership with selected schools
  • BeHealthy Partnership (Medicaid ACO)- Helping to improve access to Preventative Care Services (i.e. Breast Cancer Screening, Colorectal Cancer Screening and Immunizations). Improving perinatal mortality and morbidity in birthing people of Color. Improving Youth Mental Health through Early Intervention
  • Clinical & Support Options- Collaborating with community organizations on Community Gardening & Nutrition Education, explore and help overcome housing challenges among disabled and medically compromised homeless individuals, and Help foster an interconnected community of providers
  • Communities That Care Coalition (CTC), Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG)- School Policies on Screen Use in Schools
  • Viability, Inc.- supporting persons with disabilities to get employment opportunities
  • Baystate Health Wellness on Wheels (WoW) Bus- Assessment & implementation of mental health prevention education resources and services
  • Northampton Department of Health and Human Services- The DHHS has a mission is to protect, preserve, and promote the health and well-being of all Northampton’s residents, particularly the most vulnerable.

Back to Top