Doctor training starts here in 7th grade

A Chicago public school is one of hundreds nationwide that prepare young minority students for college and ultimately a medical career.

By Kevin B. O'Reilly, AMNews staff. Oct. 3, 2005.

A seventh-grader wearing a too-big white lab coat, surgical booties, mask and vinyl gloves trundled up to Glenn Harrison, MD, on a hot, muggy September day in Chicago. After glancing down at a sheet of paper, the boy asked the doctor if he was an internal medicine physician.

Dr. Harrison confirmed that he was, and that he worked at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County. The boy, delighted, asked Dr. Harrison to sign the paper he was holding.

"I feel like a rock star," the internist said.

Dr. Harrison was one of about three dozen physicians who helped students complete a medical scavenger hunt where they had to learn medical definitions, take a physician's pulse and find hidden medical gear. The event was part of a day-long series of activities that kicked off a new public school in Chicago aimed at helping underrepresented minority students prepare for college and eventually a career in medicine.

The Daniel Hale Williams Preparatory School of Medicine, named after the Chicago surgeon who founded the first black-owned U.S. hospital in 1891, is the first school of its kind in Illinois. But the idea is decades old. Although it's unclear exactly how many medical magnet schools exist, experts estimate that there are several hundred programs running.

Offering aspiring doctors a chance to be mentored by practicing physicians should prove invaluable, said Karl Kirby, MD, a Chicago family physician who attended the kick-off.

"Unless you've seen people who've done it, then you don't imagine it," said Dr. Kirby, who is black. "And if you cannot imagine it, you can't achieve it."