Medical students work with local high school students at Med Mentors Career Exploration Day (Photo: LCOM Creative Services)

More than 60 area Vermont high schoolers learned first-hand from medical students about the skills they learn and decisions they face daily in medical school at the 2017 Med Mentors Careers Exploration Day held Saturday, April 1 at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. Dozens of Larner medical student volunteers helped make the event possible. The Med Mentors Student Interest Group (SIG) collaborated with the Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) program on the event.

Students, teachers and parents from six area high schools, including Winooski High School, South Burlington High School, Mount Mansfield Union High School, Essex High School, Burlington Technical Center and Colchester High School, attended the day-long event.

The day’s activities featured breakout sessions hosted by members representing five SIGS. The Association of Women Surgeons SIG led a session on incisions and suturing using banana “patients.” The Emergency Medicine SIG workshop focused on a case of “acute abdomen” and provided information about the anatomy of the abdomen, with hands-on training on how to examine and determine whether abdominal pain is a true emergency case. The Students of Medicine Involved in Local Education – Doctors Ought to Care (SMILE Docs) SIG session featured hands-on exploration of anatomical models and information about the circulatory system. A session hosted by the Family Medicine SIG allowed the high schoolers to learn how to conduct heart, lung, and reflex exams. The Pediatrics SIG’s workshop focused on an interactive case study. Attendees also participated in organ specimen-viewing in the pathology lab, a panel discussion featuring medical students and health care professionals, interactions with Standardized Patients and a tour of the Clinical Simulation Laboratory.

Med Mentors SIG co-leaders and first-year medical students Megan Kawasaki, Arjun Patel, Michael Nilo, and Jake Lehman organized the event, with support from SIG advisors Laurie Loveland of the UVM AHEC office and Associate Dean for Primary Care Charles Maclean, M.D.