High schoolers get a front-line look at challenges of practicing medicine
BY BRIAN LEE
Raven Warren from Palo Alto High School practices on a mannequin to learn how to deliver a baby
Few teenagers get a chance during their life, let alone in one day, to practice birthing a baby and cutting open gallbladders in surgery. About 115 Bay Area high school students gave it a try recently when they came to the medical school campus and learned what it takes to be a doctor.
The "Med School 101" program brought students from Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, San Jose and Hayward to run the gamut of medical challenges on April 20 in hopes of inspiring them to reach for careers in medicine. Instead of real-life patients in the operating room, however, they did surgery by computer simulation and delivered baby mannequins.
Dean Philip Pizzo, MD, greeted the students, describing the many opportunities that exist with a medical degree beyond the escapades of a practicing doctor as seen on television.
"I didn't think you could also do research," said Ivan Yong, 14, a student at Gunn High School in Palo Alto. "I didn't know you could do so much with a medical degree."
During the day students met with School of Medicine educators who use cutting-edge technology to teach procedures to medical professionals. Students had a chance to practice birthing techniques at the Center for Advanced Pediatric Education, a simulation center employing high-tech robots and other state-of-the-art systems to train doctors and nurses. The robots had beating hearts and breathing lungs that added realism to students training to do CPR or inserting throat ventilation tubes. "Learning how to save peoples lives through the mannequin interested me the most," said Kevin Hsu, 14, a student at Gunn High School.
Virtual surgery was another technique students tried at SUMMIT, the Stanford University Medical Media & Information Technologies lab. Students navigated cameras and precision tools inside a virtual body as they watched on a computer screen to gain the hand-and-eye coordination necessary for real surgery.
"These are serious video games, because in the end you need to learn something," instructed LeRoy Heinrichs, MD, PhD, director of surgical simulation and professor of obstetrics and gynecology, emeritus. Reminiscent of the Milton Bradley board game "Operation," the computer screen flashed red whenever a student's virtual scalpel touched the wrong tissue. Instead of wishbones, however, students removed red and green tumors. "That's a lot harder to do than it looks," said Daniel Jones, 15, a student at Palo Alto High School.
Other seminar topics ranged from using brain imaging feedback for pain control to using horses as models to improve bedside manner.
Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, assistant professor of anesthesia, described how patients watching their own brain activity on a screen, using magnetic resonance imaging, can learn to manage pain. Beverley Kane, MD, helped students recognize nonverbal cues from a horse's body language while finding the horse's heartbeat at Stanford's Red Barn Stables. The lesson in "horse sense" demonstrated how doctors can discern patients' condition by paying attention to what they do as well as what they say.
During a lunch break, some of Stanford's medical students dropped by to talk with the teens and share advice. One first-year medical student, Terese Fu, told the students, "Try volunteering in a hospital or nursing home. You can gain valuable experience, and the patients will really appreciate it."
Brian Lee is a science-writing intern in the Office of Communications & Public Affairs at the School of Medicine.
