Teaching Students the Value of Medicine

WABC-TV—May 15, 2011

Broken bones and fractures is the topic of discussion for Dr. Lisa Ipp, as she speaks to an audience from the Bronx.

What is unusual about her lecture is who she is speaking to. Dr. Ipp's audience is a group of public school students from Global Technology Preparatory.

The children chose this apprenticeship at Hospital for Special Surgery, where they will learn the ins and outs of what it takes to become medical professionals.

The children's apprenticeship is actually very important to the future of patients because of an expectant shortage of medical professionals that are predicted to start declining in the next ten years.

In fact, the predicted shortages that will need to be filled in the next ten years or so are a quarter million nurses and 90,000 doctors.

Hospital for Special Surgery CEO Louis Shapiro also realizes how important it is for children to go into the medical field.

"We have baby boomers aging. We have increasing demand for health care and primary physicians, orthopedic surgeons, nurses and so on. We need to encourage young kids to pick this as a great career," Shapiro said.

One of the procedures the kids from Global Technology Prep, a school within PS 7 are learning is how to make a cast. They have been taught how important perfect positioning is for the bone to heal right.

The kids at Global Technology Prep are also looking at digital X-rays of bones with radiologists and X-ray technicians. They are being shown artificial knees and the latest in hip replacement technology.

CA Technologies, corporate donor to Hospital for Special Surgery, partnered with HSS to organize a Student Education Day for sixth grade students from CA Technologies' PENCIL school partner, Global Technology Preparatory in East Harlem.
 
Students learned more about the medical field through hands-on activities and meetings with a broad cross-section of HSS staff, including Lisa Ipp, M.D. (Pediatrics),  Timothy Wright, Ph.D. (BioMechanics), Helene Pavlov. M.D. (Radiology), Luis Polanco (Casting), Magda Oledzka (Pediatric Rehabilitation) and CEO Lou Shapiro. The goal of the program was to expose students to a diverse set of career possibilities within health care.
 
This story originally appeared at abclocal.go.com.