Harvard dental student, mom credits AHEC village in helping create his healthcare pathway

Harvard dental student, mom credits AHEC village in helping create his healthcare pathway Cambridge, MA –

When Abdul-Rakeem Yakubu received his white coat at the Harvard School of Dentistry Medicine White Coat Ceremony in May, he likely remembered his time, years earlier, at the South Piedmont (N.C.) AHEC at the start of his healthcare journey.    

He may have remembered because of the profound impression it left on him, but his memory may also have been sparked because as he scanned the audience, he saw the familiar face of AHEC.

Michelle Boyd, the South Piedmont AHEC’s Director of Health Careers, Diversity and Workforce Development, was there, having travelled from her home in North Carolina to Cambridge to witness Rakeem’s moment.

“We at South Piedmont AHEC are so proud of Rakeem, and I am glad that I was able to witness this milestone alongside his family,” Boyd said. “We have kept in touch since he graduated from high school and when he shared his acceptance into dentistry school, I knew I had to be there. As I watched him take the stage and make his remarks in the presence of his classmates, faculty and a sea of hundreds of family and friends, I was moved to tears when he included me and NC AHEC in the list of people that he wanted to acknowledge. It reminded me of why we do this worthwhile work.”

Boyd remembers Rakeem’s first days with AHEC well. In the summer of 2014, as an eighth grader, he joined HEROES, a South Piedmont AHEC residential pipeline program hosted at UNC Charlotte.

“His mother and father were impressed with our program and the opportunities for exposure,” Boyd said. “With the unexpected passing of his father when he was in middle school, she knew it would take a village to raise this future healthcare professional, and AHEC would be part of that village.”

Rakeem continued to participate in South Piedmont AHEC programs, including the HEROES Health Careers Club, Future Leaders in Healthcare Conference, and health science college tours. It was during of those tours that Rakeem shared his interest in dentistry.

As an undergraduate at UPenn, he agreed to come back to Charlotte, NC, to be a keynote presenter at the closing ceremony of the Health Careers Club, the same club in which he was a participant just a few years earlier.

At Harvard, Rakeem has enrolled in the DMD-PhD Dual Degree program. The goal of the program is to train the next generation of academic leaders of dentists/scientists in a broad spectrum of oral and craniofacial biology and skeletogenesis from basic and translational sciences to bioengineering.

Rakeem has credited his experiences at AHEC as having prepared him to take this next step towards his future.

“AHEC helped show me that there are so many careers in health care in addition to the traditional family doctors or dentists,” he said. “Learning from the speakers and their experiences inspired me to chase my own path and bridge my passions together to eventually become a physician scientist.”

Rakeem's mother, Rachelle Yakubu,was an active member of the award-winning Parents of AHEC program, where she fostered connections among parents of aspiring healthcare professionals.

“In raising my children,” she said. ‘I try to follow two principals of ‘train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he shall not depart from it,’ and the proverb, ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’

“It took that village with the direction of Ms. Boyd and Sophia (Moore-Dennis, project coordinator) to take Rakeem under their wings and help him remain focused on the path of his dreams. We don’t succeed alone; the village is there to help you along, and for that I am grateful.”

“The future is bright for Rakeem,” Boyd said, “and we look forward to continuing to watch him grow!”