Pumpkins and robots? How doctors inspire Modesto students to pursue health careers
Robots, pumpkins and high school students.
Could they be part of the solution to the health care workforce shortage in Stanislaus County?
That’s the hope of the Stanislaus County Medical Society.
The organization of nearly 1,000 doctors collaborated with the Stanislaus County Office of Education to host Destination Medicine, a day for high school students to get hands-on experiences in medical fields.
“The goal of Destination Medicine is to encourage high school students to pursue a career in any health profession,” said Dr. Rosalio Rubio. “We want them to go off to college, medical school and whatever studies they need, but then ultimately come back to the Valley to serve our population here.”
Rubio is an internist with CareMore Health and helped start the program four years ago.
Stanislaus County, along with other counties in the San Joaquin Valley, has a longstanding health care workforce shortage, which is expected to worsen in the next decade, according to a report from the California Future Health Workforce Commission.
Destination Medicine is one action to help build a pipeline of homegrown future health professionals to serve the area.
Rubio said students get exposure to a broad spectrum of health professions with interactive activities. All of the physicians, technicians and EMTs volunteered their time for the event.
About 125 students from high schools across the county participated in the event at John Allard School in Ceres on Feb. 22.
One of the largest contingents of students, a total of 29, came from Davis High School’s Health Career Academy, which has some funding from a grant specifically to assist students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
All of the student participants have expressed an interest in a health career and were enrolled by their school counselors.
“I’m interested in being a midwife,” said Jordan Rosas, one of the Davis HCA students.
At lunch, 10 of her fellow students at Davis HCA rattled off their wide range of career interests, including pediatrician, nurse, NICU team, social worker, lab technician, EMT, medical examiner, military doctor and family physician.
The day’s activities included a few lectures about the training needed for different medical careers. However, the highlights for the students were six hands-on workshops, including laparoscopic surgery on a pumpkin, ultrasound, splinting, CPR, wilderness medicine and operating the very popular da Vinci robotics system.
Dr. Rohini Bogineni, trauma surgeon at Doctors Medical Center in Modesto, demonstrated how the da Vinci machine operated, and the students had a chance to maneuver a penny using the robot arms to simulate human surgery.
“I learned a lot of stuff is going on in the health field,” said Elise Varner, a sophomore at Davis HCA. “The health field is advancing, which I find is pretty cool.”
Samantha Vasquez, a junior at Gregori High School, had a chance to perform laparoscopic surgery to save a pumpkin from a “seedy” tumor.
“The kids have a great time with the hands-on workshops,” said Dr. Amardeep Deol, president of the Stanislaus Medical Society and gynecological surgeon at Kaiser Permanente in Modesto, who led the laparoscopy workshop.
“I want to be the one to take care of my family and stay close to home,” said Samantha, who wants to be a nurse and live in Modesto.
Her plans embody the goal of the day.
“This county is in need of health professionals, so we want to encourage as many high school students, college students to pursue those fields and ultimately serve this community,” said Rubio.
This story was produced with financial support from The Stanislaus County Office of Education and the Stanislaus Community Foundation, along with the GroundTruth Project’s Report for America initiative. The Modesto Bee maintains full editorial control of this work.
