High schoolers shadow physicians

VCU’s drive to teach the next generation of medical professionals extends beyond its own residents and interns. In fact, it reaches even beyond its whole student body. Through the Virginia Governor’s School for Life Sciences and Medicine, sponsored by VCU Life Sciences, up to 30 high school juniors and seniors are given the chance each summer to see firsthand what it really takes to be a physician.

Through three weeks of intensive classroom-based case studies, students are asked to play the physician’s role by obtaining medical histories, developing differential diagnoses, selecting diagnostic tests, interpreting physical exam findings and lab results and, ultimately, creating a treatment plan. Along the way, they pick up molecular techniques, problem-solving diagnostics and an understanding of public health and epidemiological statistics.

However, the capstone of the experience is the three days they spend shadowing doctors as they visit with patients, work with other doctors, perform procedures and round through the ICU.

Only then can they say whether the field of medicine is one they truly want to pursue.