I am often amazed at the opportunities that students have today. Since I teach in a school that includes a Math and Science magnet program, we have many intelligent and diligent students who are thinking about becoming doctors in the future, a career interest for many of the students I have taught through the years.
Oh, but what opportunities kids have today!
Our senior magnet students are required to complete internships for one semester during their final year of high school. Some students who are considering careers in the medical field intern with doctors, and a few of the lucky ones get to spend weeks working with energetic and compassionate surgeons who are willing to mentor a seventeen or eighteen-year-old student.
That’s right – surgeons!
Students get their own scrubs and have the opportunity to enter the operating room and watch as surgeons complete operations, not once, but many, many times during the 18-week program. Every semester I have wide-eyed students who tell me all about what they see during operations, and our conversations almost always revolve around the amputations that they see.
Yes, amputations! (I would run away, but for kids who are interested in medicine, this is an experience of a lifetime.)
Imagine being eighteen years old and interested in becoming a doctor. How much would it mean to you to be able to walk into a doctor’s office or a surgeon’s office and shadow him during part of the day? Without question, students who have this amazing opportunity will remember it for the rest of their lives, and this experience will indeed help them decide if a life in medicine is what they want to pursue.
I wish all of our students had the opportunity to shadow caring professionals who are willing to devote part of their day to prepare future generations for careers.
