About a dozen young people, ages 11 to 14, gathered in Fred Hampton’s social room at Proviso East High School in Maywood on July 23 to get a sense of what it’s like to study medicine.
The young participants were given real stethoscopes and learned about the human heart, skin, blood, digestion, disease and surgical techniques.
The first “Little Medical School” was free to participants and sponsored by Maywood Safe Summer, a summer youth activity program started by Maywood Trustee Isiah Brandon.
Maywood resident Eileen Olivier identified the program and thought it would be a good idea to lure it to Maywood.
Little Medical School is a national program with a branch in Chicago. The program is designed to “inspire young minds by sharing our passion for learning, health and careers in medicine,” according to the website.
“Through hands-on activities, role-playing and interactive demonstrations, children discover the exciting world of healthcare. All programs are written by experienced educators, board-certified physicians, and trained health professionals. Our classes are led by trained Little Medical School instructors.”
Olivier said she is always looking for medical programs for her two sons. She contacted Shaun Willis, the president of Little Medical School-Chicago West, and he agreed to take the program to East.
“Trustee Brandon helped us secure a location and funding, and Loyola Medicine funded the program, allowing us to offer it to the students for free,” Olivier said.
“These students are so engaged and interested,” she said. “They come up with questions and are interested in science. We want to study biochemistry and medical sciences.”
Barbara Cole, the founder of Maywood Youth Mentoring, helped facilitate and promote the two Little Medical School workshops, held on July 16 and 23.
“We want to get younger kids involved,” Cole said. “The kids here know so much that I was impressed by the questions they asked. We want to continue this and hopefully attract even more Loyola support.”
Cole said Loyola has agreed to cover the cost, which is about $110 per student. She hopes that even more money flows will go to the program in the future.
Jordyn Parker, 12, said his experience at Little Medical School was fun and he met a lot of new people.
“My favorite thing I’ve seen under the microscope is probably the spider web we took off the wall, the leaf, and when we saw our fingers,” Parker said. ‘We learned about arteries and red and white blood cells. I want to become a doctor for people who [Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder].”
Mary-Grace Murray, a sophomore medical student at Loyola Stritch School of Medicine, outlined the students’ lessons.
“They look at a lot of different slides under the microscope, like blood. They have learned the different components of blood, the red and white blood cells, plasma and platelets. And then we also looked at arteries and veins,” she said.
“From there, they looked at the difference between the more muscular stiff arteries in the veins. We also looked at cardiac and smooth muscle, the cardia of the stomach, small and large intestine, mainly from human samples. They learned all these concepts in class last week and today they get to see it under the microscope.”
After the second workshop ended, the students all received their ceremonial white coats – just like real medical students.
CONTACT: michael@oakpark.com
