ORLANDO, Fla. – A group of Evans High School students stepped out of the classroom to learn about careers in the medical field. The students toured Orlando Health’s Jewett Orthopedic Center as part of a community partnership.
“These are the kinds of things that completely change the trajectory of a student’s life. They see someone who they can relate to and identify with and say, I could do this, this is something I can do,” said Kelly Astro, Children’s Home Society Community Partnerships School Director Serving Evans High School. “It’s when the lightbulb goes off for that student. My favorite part is when I see that student realize this is what I want to do and can do and they achieve that dream.”
Students started their day with Dr. Hamadi Murphy, an orthopedic spine surgeon.
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“So today we’re hosting a sawbones workshop with some students from Evans High School, just introducing them to the field of orthopedic surgery and showing some of them some of the cool things we do in that OR,” Murphy said.
The students are enrolled in Morehouse College’s Upward Bound program, which focuses on STEM education.
“It’s honestly great. I didn’t expect to love it so much,” said student Aisha Williams.
Williams said she hopes to be a psychologist, but this field trip has opened her mind to other possibilities.
“So earlier when he was like, showing us like the spines and people that had scoliosis, I was like, I have a lot of family members who actually deal with it. And then I’m like, that will kind of be cool, you know, to help out others and then similar experiences that I’m familiar with,” she said.
“What will you tell the other kids at school about today?” asked News 6′s Julie Broughton.
“That they should have come on the field trip,” Williams said.
Astro said trips like this not only help students identify career goals but also help them see the path to that goal.
“It’s a living lab. Learning by doing allows them to engage in conversation in a dialogue with people they might not otherwise have the opportunity to do so. And to just learn all about different careers that exist in this case in the medical field,” she said.
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