Corona del Mar High doctors’ club gets hands-on practice
Corona del Mar High School Future Doctors Club members Alexia Gonzalez and Ryan Elmajian study knot tying at UCI Medical Center in Orange on Tuesday.
After suiting up in scrubs, students of Corona del Mar High School huddled around a table Tuesday in a lab within the UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange.
In front of them was a slab of rubber, slits pre-sliced, its color resembling skin.
Tweezers and threaded needles at the ready, the students tried to steady their shaking hands while piercing the skin-like model in an attempt to sew the perfect stitch — a tough but essential skill for the job field the young learners had in mind.
Simone Vernez, center, a UCI Medical student, trains Corona del Mar High School Future Doctors Club members Chris Wendland, left, and Parker Hoffman how to open suture using forceps and medical tweezers at UCI Medical Center in Orange on Tuesday.
The 15 students were members of CdM’s newly created Doctors of Tomorrow club, taking on one task of five that UCI’s Department of Urology — which has a high school outreach program to give future physicians some surgical procedure practice — had set up for them during their visit Tuesday.
Rahul Dutta, a research fellow at the center, showed the members how it was done. He glided his needle and thread around the rubber slit, demonstrating how to best position one’s wrists to tie the thread for the best knot.
“None of this is easy,” Dutta said. “Having to do this in a high-pressure situation and getting your measurements correct takes a long time. But it just takes practice.”
Christina Hwang, center, surgical education lab manager, goes over a da Vinci surgical robot as Corona del Mar High School Future Doctors Club member Zach Glabman, right, gets some hands-on experience with the machine at UCI Medical Center in Orange on Tuesday.
The club, which has about 40 members, was founded last year by Sammy Pickell, now a sophomore. Members typically meet twice a month, during CdM’s lunch break, but find that the 30-minute period can only accommodate so many activities. Though they’ve had guest speakers come to the campus to talk about various medical professions, Sammy said she’s hoping to coordinate more field trips like Tuesday’s to the UCI Medical Center.
“This is a way more hands-on way of learning,” sophomore Joaquin Andrade said of the trip. “It gives us a chance to get up close to the equipment we’ll be using someday.”
Joaquin hopes to become an anesthesiologist. Others in the club plan to pursue careers in the cardiovascular, pediatric and biomedical engineering fields.
Corona del Mar High School Future Doctors Club members get a hands on demonstration of a da Vinci surgical robot at UCI Medical Center in Orange on Tuesday.
The future doctors also checked out a Da Vinci Surgical System — robotic technology that translates a surgeon’s hand movements into smaller, more precise movements.
Using the system, they moved a thread through small loops, an act that replicates the tiny movements needed for delicate surgical procedures.
The next field trip for the Doctors of Tomorrow is planned to be to “Bodies: The Exhibition” in Buena Park.
