The Minority Medical Mentoring Program HOPE Banquet will be held on Thursday, May 22 from 6 to 8 pm at Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC), Blue Ridge Room, 121 Hendersonville Road, Asheville, NC. Tickets are $50 each and go to support the Minority Medical Mentoring Program.

Click here to reserve your tickets.

The Minority Medical Mentoring Program allows high school seniors to shadow medical providers as student interns.

Why is this program so important? Here is some background information from the event invite:

There are 974 physicians actively practicing medicine in Buncombe County; only two percent (2%) are underrepresented minorities (self-reporting). The latest numbers are seven African Americans (0.72%), eight Indian (.82%), two Vietnamese (0.21%), one Latino (0.10%), one Korean (0.10%) and one Asian/Pacific Islander (10%). – Western Carolina Medical Society, May 29, 2013

These statistics reflect a serious need to increase the numbers of underrepresented minorities in the health professions in order to promote culturally consistent care.

We invite you to join us in the effort of growing our future leaders in healthcare that will potentially come back to practice in Western North Carolina. Your donation and attendance will contribute to the sustainability of this program as well as provide scholarships to program participants.

This program is a collaboration of Asheville-Buncombe Institute for Parity Achievement (ABIPA), the Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC), Mission Health and the Western Carolina Medical Society (WCMS).