Alhambra High School senior Rose Mabior is pretty sure she knows what career path she’ll take when she graduates next spring.
“I want to be in the hospital field and be a hospitalist . . . like an emergency-room doctor,” said Rose, 17, of Phoenix. “I’ve always wanted to help people of different ages.”
An annual summer program by the University of Arizona downtown Phoenix medical campus has helped her choose her career. Rose is among 24 students from across the Valley in UA’s Med-Start, an exclusive five-week program whose costs – $2,000 per student – are largely covered by a combination of grants from Phoenix Suns Charities, an endowment and support by the UA College of Medicine.
The program’s associate director, Patricia Rodriguez, said the program is in its 31st year, but this is the sixth year it has been offered at the Phoenix campus.
Rodriguez said UA also hopes the students will attend its College of Medicine. However, she said, few have so far.
“We really are trying to encourage students who are underrepresented in medicine” to enter the medical field, Rodriguez said.
That includes low-income students and those who are ethnic minorities.
All the students in the program are entering their senior year of high school, wrote essays and completed an extensive application to be in Med-Start.
Students must provide their transportation. Hospitals that work with Med-Start are near bus and light-rail lines, so students can easily get to them, Rodriguez said.
Students last week visited Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, at 12th Street and McDowell Road, where doctors introduced them to the radiology department.
The department has a machine with a multitude of uses. It generates X-rays that enable doctors to examine patients for the source of health issues such as hip trouble, and it can direct radiation to kill cancerous cells.
Several professionals besides radiologists work within the department. Students were surprised to learn that the department employs oncologists, as well as physicists such as Mike Groesch.
One of Groesch’s responsibilities includes using physics to tailor treatments – the correct amount of radiation, intensity and exposure – for cancer patients.
“Fat, bone and muscle, they all have different density,” Groesch said. “And every tissue in your body has a certain threshold to radiation. It gets pretty tricky.”
Jorge Bahena, a senior in the Mesa-based high school health program East Valley Academy, has been overwhelmed by the possibilities for medical jobs.
“Because of the program, I keep changing my mind,” he said.
Website: www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/07/23/20100723phoenix-teens-medical-careers-ua-program.html