Teen Has Healthy Attitude to Hard Work

Buena High School senior Loren Hilburn has something going for him besides good grades and high test scores, something that will take him all the way to a prestigious medical forum in July and to Stanford University in September.

“He’s a real fighter,” Buena counselor Jean Wise said. “He doesn’t give up. He just goes out there and works harder.”

Hilburn, 18, who suffers from mild cerebral palsy, is modest about his 3.8 grade-point average and other achievements. But when it comes to hard work, he has coined his own adage.

“Who cares if you have the brains?” he said. “You’re going to have to work your butt off anyway.”

Hilburn’s hard work has earned him a berth at the prestigious National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine in July. The forum will give Hilburn and about 350 other outstanding high school students nationwide the opportunity to mix with some of the nation’s top medical leaders and view some of the field’s cutting-edge technology.

Hilburn said he is attracted to medicine because of the long hours, difficult work and the chance to save lives.

“I’ve been gung-ho about being a doctor since I was 13 or 14,” he said. “I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.”

The medical leadership forum is just one of many programs that the Washington-based National Youth Leadership Forum runs each year.

Peggy Smrcka, director of the forum’s education programs, says the medicine forum should give Hilburn a first-hand perspective on what it takes and what it means to be a successful doctor.

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Although she has yet to meet him, Smrcka said Hilburn is an ideal candidate for the forum because of his drive.

“What he’s going to find are 350 students who are exactly like him, who are the fighters who are willing to do anything to succeed,” she said. “He’ll fit in beautifully.”

Hilburn attributed his drive to his parents and to his battle with cerebral palsy. The disorder, which has affected his muscle coordination since birth, recently forced him to use a wheelchair. But that has not broken Hilburn’s stride.

Buena counselor Wise said Hilburn avoided using a wheelchair at school for as long as hecould.

“He resists any limitation,” she said. “He used to refuse [a wheelchair] even when he was in pain.”

“I go around school in a wheelchair,” Hilburn said, “and it drives me nuts when people try to push me or open a door for me.”

For Hilburn, the medicine forum and Stanford are just the next steps on the road toward realizing his dream of becoming a doctor.

His goal of leaving Stanford with high honors may seem ambitious, but for Hilburn anything is possible with hard work.

“I like a challenge,” he said.