VCOM hosts Summer Enrichment Experience
27 girls participated in the SEE program this past week. The young ladies attend high school in Southwest Virginia or North Carolinas and are being taught by VCOM faculty and medical students anatomy and other science courses to expose them to topics covered in medical school. Photo courtsey of William King.
The Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine hosted a group of 30 high-school girls and 16 boys for one-week medical immersion camps July 8-13 and 15-20, 2012.
The camp, called the Summer Enrichment Experience (SEE), introduced high school students in medically underserved areas of Appalachia to human anatomy and its relevance to healthy lifestyles and medicine.
Second-year VCOM medical students served as instructors and guides for high school participants, teaching them about the heart, lungs, bones, brain and digestive system through interactive lectures and labs. SEE students work with VCOM medical students to identify body systems and structures in the state-of-the-art VCOM anatomy lab and put their new knowledge into practice through hands-on activities including building model organs, tracing the path of blood through the body, conducting a neurologic exam and engaging in a bioethics case discussion. Throughout the week, students also research health topics and make posters to present this information to their peers.
VCOM provided local hotel accommodations for students who must drive further than 45 minutes to attend. Evening activities for these students included outings to local businesses and restaurants and a tour of the Virginia Tech campus.
The high school students came from Appalachian regions in Virginia and North Carolina which are under-represented in health care fields. All participants have maintained at least an average GPA of 2.75 and were nominated by a teacher, guidance counselor or clergy member in their home town.
This year, attendees came from Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Radford, Pulaski, Martinsville, Fuqua, Hampton Roads Academy, Tazewell and Kinston High Schools, among others.
– Submitted by William King
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
