Northeast AHEC's STEPS Program Going Nationwide

The Northeast Kentucky Area Health Education Center (NE KY AHEC) is proud to announce that its Successfully Training and Educating Pre-medical Students (STEPS) program is going nationwide.

The National AHEC Organization recently received a grant from the Boston Scientific Foundation to replicate STEPS concepts (including Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) prep, personal statement assistance, mock interviews, etc.) to nine regional AHEC across the nation from May 2025 through March 2026. The NE KY AHEC will be a paid consultant on the project.

The NE KY AHEC developed STEPS in 2014 to develop more – and more competitive – medical school applicants from within its 17-county region. Since that time, approximately 68% of participants have been accepted to medical school – significantly higher than the national rate of 43%.

Due to the success of STEPS, the NE KY AHEC was presented with the Center of Excellence for Distribution Award at the National AHEC Organization's 2018 conference. The award recognizes an AHEC program that is improving healthcare workforce distribution throughout the nation, particularly among rural and underserved areas and populations. Since 2018, the Kentucky Primary Care Office has funded expansion of STEPS within the NE KY AHEC and replication of the program to Kentucky’s other regional AHECs.

“Our vision is to be the national model for AHECs with regard to health-related programming, community responsiveness, and results,” said NE KY AHEC Director David A. Gross. “We are thrilled with the success STEPS has had in our region and across Kentucky and now look forward to working with other regional centers to spread that success to multiple states.”