I AM ABEL FOUNDATION is closing the gap while preparing our Chicago area students for careers in medicine and service to humanity.   As an organization built on mentoring, we are excited that you have agreed to become a medical student or physician mentor.  This reception will be the first opportunity of many for many of you to meet and mingle with your newly assigned mentee.  Come share your story or a word of encouragement with our pre-med hopefuls. There will be a bite to eat and wonderful entertainment plus an inspiring keynote address from one of I AM ABEL FOUNDATION physician mentors and Chicago Top Doc, Adrianne Dade, MD.

We truly hope that you may join us for the reception but if you are unable to attend, we will email to you the contact information for your mentee by May 31st, 2019 along with our Mentee Handbook PDF so you may schedule your own first meeting.  We ask that the medical school student or physician mentor establishes the initial contact when possible because in our experience, the students are typically too afraid to initiate contact. 

We truly appreciate all of our mentors especially our newest additions to the mentoring family at I AM ABEL FOUNDATION - our medical students.  You are critical to the life of our students and we look forwards to expanding mentoring in this group.  We truly believe that "each one must teach one."  Through highly impactful mentoring and our scholarly programs, we focus on preparing Chicago area underrepresented youth for careers in medicine and global health humanitarian service locally and abroad.

Also - If available, please register for our Chicago Health And Medical Careers Citywide Student Conference that will be earlier during the day from 7:30-5pm.  Stop by our Exhibitor Hall beginning at 11:30am or mingle with visiting students at any time.  

At 3pm, attend a session with Chris Gandy, Midwest Legacy on financial preparedness for medical students and physicians.  There will be something for everyone.  Spend the afternoon or the entire day!

Our Mission

The I Am Abel Foundation is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that seeks to bridge socioeconomic gaps and promote achievement amongst underrepresented minority inner city youth with a focus on high school, college and post-baccalaureate students.  Our students are competively selected but many lack the tools, confidence or mentoring that is required to navigate the complicated and challenging journey to medicine. We are their bridge and support and vow to follow them from our pinning ceremony to their white coat ceremony in medical school.  Through our programming and mentoring we affirm our motto of Excellence Period. Serve Always.  Furthermore, we insist that through every door of opportunity they are privileged to walk through, they must leave an outstretched hand and wedge in the door for others to follow.   By this we change our communities from the inside out.

Through our flagship Urban Bridges Medical Mentoring Program, we assist minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged Chicago area youth achieve careers in medicine that they never thought possible giving them a real shot at this not so impossible dream. Our Urban Bridges Medical Mentoring Program is designed to offer 1:1 physician mentoring as well as academic and career building opportunities for Chicago area students underrepresented in the field of medicine.  Students meet monthly for our Saturday Morning Professor Series but also participate in a plethora of activities throughout the year.  Service and leadership is key with us so we train our students to teach their peers.  Many are even Redcross certified Instructors who teach high school students life saving CPR across the city.  In 2018, we are starting a "Help When It Hurts Chapter" and will begin to take Mental Health First Aid Courses to those who need it most in our city.   

We seek to identify and engage the large pool of untapped gifts, intellect and talent among our inner city youth who are interested in careers in medicine and have a heart to serve and give back.  Our goal, through our physician mentoring, didactic seminars, medical study abroad, conferences as well as test taking and skill-building programs is to prepare our successors in medicine.  We promote college and medical school readiness and provide our scholars what many lack – an opportunity.  We are passionate about preparing our youth to address health disparities locally and abroad and to meet the coming massive physician shortage anticipated by the year 2025 if not sooner.  Many of our students plan to practice medicine and serve in the communities from which they arose.

Thank you for becoming a part of our foundation!  Please encourage others of your colleagues to join this powerful grassroots movement.   We are not only preparing our next generation of health care leaders.  We are changing our communities from the inside out.  If not us then who?