Ambassador

NHSC Ambassadors are faculty members and guidance counselors from health professions schools across the Nation. They are dedicated to improving access to primary care in underserved communities; represent all of the NHSC disciplines; and are a focal point in distributing information, providing career guidance, and spreading awareness of the Corps and its mission.

NHSC Ambassadors volunteer their time to help identify students who are aspiring to become primary care clinicians dedicated to serving in America’s areas of greatest need. Ambassadors help prepare NHSC Scholars to work in underserved communities upon graduation by linking them to hands-on training opportunities and volunteer experiences, and by providing curriculum guidance.

Michael McCunniff, DDS, Associate Professor in the Department of Dental Public Health & Behavioral Science and Director of Outreach for the UMKC School of Dentistry
Getting Students Passionate About Primary Care

Dr. Michael McCunniff is the NHSC Ambassador at the University of Missouri, Kansas City School of Dentistry. His passion for providing access to dental care for underserved populations and organizing the best hands-on experience for dental students is contagious.McCunniff inspires his students to become fully engaged in extending their skills and hearts to people in need through placement in rural clinics and volunteer service at free clinics—some involving more than 200 dental clinicians seeing more than 1,500 patients at NASCAR tracks and county fairgrounds.

McCunniff promotes the NHSC as an opportunity to serve the underserved at every point in his students’ academic careers. NHSC scholarship opportunities are presented to prospective students during their initial interviews, and to incoming and returning students in the classroom and at NHSC-hosted events. At graduation,McCunniff reminds those seeking positions in areas of need to explore the possibility of the NHSC Loan Repayment Program and other NHSC resources, such as the online job bank (the "Opportunities List").

We asked McCunniff about his role as an NHSC Ambassador:

What difference can an NHSC Ambassador make in improving the health of the Nation's underserved and building better systems of care?
I can help students form a vision and mission in life; the NHSC backs my work up by providing the means to achieve their vision. Together, we help address the problem of access to quality health care. If we all chip away at something long enough, the problem will eventually disappear.

How do you, as an NHSC Ambassador, serve as a role model who can make an impact on students?
The best way to make an impact on students is to work alongside them, to walk your talk. That's why I take them with me when I fly out to remote areas in the Ozarks or help organize major events, like our Mission of Mercy clinics at the NASCAR track.When I expose dental students to the challenges of practicing in a rural setting or among the working poor of an inner city, I am not only opening their eyes to the plight of America's underserved, I am presenting them with an exciting opportunity to exercise their natural good will, creativity, and ingenuity on a daily basis.