Fifty Harlem high school students recently gathered at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine (TouroCOM), where they viewed multiple medical procedures and gained hands-on experience via interactive displays at a fair designed to expose them to the world of science and medical careers.

 

They learned CPR and how to open the airway passages on a baby robot, and were shown how to manipulate a foot to treat pain in other parts of the body. They saw the differences between normal and malignant kidney tissue and, after gazing at a map of the world, guessed where diseases were most prevalent. They also stared in awe at a video of hip replacement surgery, complete with drilling and gushing blood.

 

“They love the gory stuff,” jokingly says Roopa Patel, a second-year student at TouroCOM, which is part of the Touro College and University System. Chartered in 1970 primarily to enrich the Jewish heritage, Touro is a system of non-profit institutions of higher and professional education that now serves the larger American and global community.

 

Patel is also the co-director of MedAchieve, the twoyear after-school program at the medical school, which was launched four years ago to help turn the teens into doctors who eventually will serve the underserved.

 

Most of the students are African-American and Hispanic, from A. Philip Randolph Campus High School and Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics in Harlem, NY, as well as other high schools connected with East Harlem Tutorial Program, with a few from high schools in Queens and the Bronx.

 

“All of the students were really involved. We hope to open their eyes to medicine and also help them see what an osteopathic medical school has to offer,” Patel notes.

 

This particular event was a hands-on “specialties fair,” held to introduce the high school students to medical specialties that are not covered in regular afterschool hours. Medical students from close to 20 Touro- COM clubs ran interactive sessions to introduce the teens to the areas of interest and medical and surgical specialties including emergency medicine, pediatrics, OB-GYN, pathology, orthopedics, human rights, dermatology, family medicine and international medicine.

 

During the regular after-school hours of TouroCOM’s MedAchieve program, the teens attend lectures and labs throughout the school year taught by TouroCOM students. Each one mirrors the medical school curriculum. Each teen is also assigned to his or her own TouroCOM student mentor. If the high school students meet certain criteria after college graduation, then they are guaranteed a medical school interview at TouroCOM.

 

“After being here I know I want to be a surgeon,” states Jordan McDonald, 16, who attends A. Philip Randolph. A resident of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY whose family hails from Jamaica, McDonald says he was inspired to pursue medicine by his family doctor and by his mother, who works as a nurse in a nursing home.

 

Furthermore, McDonald feels the exposure to medicine through MedAchieve has helped him learn more about the field and focus on neurosurgery as a career path. It’s also helped him excel in his chemistry, biology and AP classes in high school.

 

“The brain is the most important and interesting part of the body,” he remarks.

 

McDonald’s mentor, Kowshik Sen, is in his second year of mentoring McDonald. Sen came to the U.S. at age 10 from Australia and said he became a mentor because when he was younger such programs did not exist and students had to explore on their own.

 

“There’s more to medicine than being good at science. We have artists. We have such talented students. We’re giving them avenues through which they can explore. If you like to draw, then even better. You can help someone understand medicine,” Sen says, explaining he realized McDonald was visual and good at drawing, which led them to work together on drawings to illustrate blood flow during a class discussion about the cardiovascular system.

 

“In [the] suturing workshop we explored technical skills,” Sen continues. “Medicine helps you think in ways you’re not used to thinking.”

 

East Harlem resident Mir Ali, Jr., heard about MedAchieve from other graduates of the program and explains how he was attracted by the prospect of a TouroCOM interview upon graduation from college.

 

“I want to take advantage of that,” says the 16- year-old sophomore. “I want to help people.”

 

Ali, whose family came to the U.S. about 25 years ago from Bangladesh, has a rare immune system disease, Wiskott Aldrich Syndrome, which he says he has had since he was very young, and has involved multiple surgeries. Ali adds that his father quit his factory job to care for him, and now he wants to become a physician to find a cure for the disorder.

 

“It was a humbling moment,” says Ali’s TouroCOM mentor, Rahul Ahuja, a first-year student from San Francisco, CA, when he learned of his mentee’s health history. “There’s more to life than studying and exams. You’ve got to find a balance.”