Teens Get a Look at What It Would Be Like to Help Change Young Lives
Jing Peng’s jaw hangs expectantly as the needle pierces skin.
She stands a safe distance away--10 feet--but occasionally she can’t resist. She leans closer. She grimaces. She raises her eyebrows for a moment, all-too-familiar with the needle’s prick.
Peng is watching an epidural, a procedure that eases the pain of childbirth.
Today, more than 50 high school students complete the monthlong Gene Black Summer Medical Careers Program, which has allowed them to shadow local pediatricians.
They have put on scrubs and lab coats, seen patients, witnessed surgeries and other less-glamorous facets of a doctor’s life, all in the hope that one day they will be the ones holding the needles, stethoscopes and scalpels.
“A lot of the premed students don’t have this type of shadowing experience,” said Dr. Jim Seidel.
Now in its 33rd year, the program has mentored more than 1,500 students. The Los Angeles Pediatric Society provides dozens of volunteer doctors and pays the program’s bills.
The society selects students from hundreds of applicants based on their interest in medicine, grades and a personal essay.
It recently received a $5,000 grant to help expand the program, which was renamed after the death of Gene Black, a fluid engineer who coordinated the program for its first 21 years.
Many students, like Peng, have a specific interest in medicine. Hers is cranial facial surgery, a form of plastic surgery.
But Peng isn’t thinking about collagen, botox or face lifts.
She was born 17 years ago in Guangzhou, China, with a cleft palate. A surgeon repaired the cleft, but used outdated techniques that left her face badly scarred.When her family moved to the United States in 1993, Peng’s mother took her to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, where a plastic surgeon reconstructed her nose. She still has a scar, but it is less noticeable.
Last week, Peng got a peek at what she hopes is her future.
Her mentor, Santa Monica pediatrician Dr. Robert Hamilton, sent her to observe doctors who treat children with cleft palates.
She saw the children and she cried.
While researching her final paper, Peng came across several groups that recruit doctors to go to poor countries and treat cleft palate cases. She said she wants to join at least one such group.
In Hamilton’s office, Peng’s ambition is not uncommon. The doctor often travels to Africa and Latin America to treat children.
During his second week in Hamilton’s office, Eric Broussard watched surgeons repair hernias on two toddlers. He walked out in awe, he said later.
But like all the students, afterward he was able to explain the procedure in detail. Though the program stops short of offering hands-on experience, each student is briefed by doctors before and after any patient visit they witness.
“They ask the tough questions,” Dr. Chip Miller said. “But they get to witness the delivery end of medicine, so it’s not just them staring at a textbook.”
Medical school--reading texts--is where Broussard expects to spend the next few years.
In a couple weeks, he will leave Los Angeles to attend classes at Xavier University in Louisiana.
By his third day in Hamilton’s office, Broussard’s mind was set. He didn’t want to study pediatrics for one reason: screaming babies.
As the students wrapped up their sessions this week, Gene Black alumna Megan Morsheimer drove back to Los Angeles to start medical school at UCLA.
She spent the summer of 1997 with Seidel in Harbor-UCLA Medical Center’s pediatric ward. At first, she saw medicine as a way to continue volunteer work.
One day during her mentorship, a young sickle-cell patient ran up to her, yelling, “Megan, Megan, I love you! Let’s go play!”
She overheard a doctor standing next to her say, “That is why I became a pediatrician.”
Morsheimer plans to study neonatology.
Changes like that are frequent among Gene Black students.
By the third week, Peng had reconsidered motherhood. After watching the epidural, she decided she could handle the pain. Now she says she wants children.
Broussard, too, has reconsidered at least one decision.
He still doesn’t want to practice pediatrics, but he has learned two things about screaming babies.
They’re healthy.
And he doesn’t mind anymore when they cry.
