Student visits KU Medical Center
Staff writer
Centre’s Kate Basore was one of 18 Kansas junior and senior high school girls selected to participate in a “Women in Health Care: The Next Generation” program at Kansas University Medical Center.
She spent Nov. 2 through 4 touring medical center facilities and visiting the various departments.
The junior said the 50 applicants had to submit an essay, a detailed application form, and several recommendations.
She said her essay was about how important women’s roles in the medical field have been in the past, are in the present, and will be in the future.
One of her more memorable experiences was in the orthopedic lab, where participants got hands-on experience with an actual human arm, working tendons and other parts of the arm to see how they all work together.
In the cancer cell lab, they saw the various parts of ovarian cancer cells in a vial and under a microscope. At the dietetics lab, they visited a garden planted by medical students.
Other departments included a cardiology-pulmonary research center, medical history library, and brain-imaging center.
Kate said they talked to some of the medical students about what it takes to get into medical school and what it is like to go through medical school.
“It [the visit] opened my eyes to see how big the medical field is and all the options I have,” Kate said.
She is planning to go into anesthesiology. The arduous course requires four years of college, four years of medical school, and two to three years of anesthesiology school.
She said she was encouraged by meeting two other participants who had the same goal.
“It will be hard but possible,” she said.
She has not made a final decision on what college she will attend after she graduates.