DHR Health and DHR Health Institute for Research & Development partnered with Region One Education Service Center for the second year to offer high school students and teachers a chance to participate in a Junior Clinical Research Internship.
The program’s primary objective is to reinforce the importance of lifelong learning and enhance participants’ understanding of the significance of critical thinking and generation of new knowledge.
This program is intended to also foster a better understanding of various disciplines in medicine and allied health sciences.
“We decided that the best thing would be to give them an immersive experience,” Dr. Sohail Rao, president and CEO of DHR Health IRD, said. “Bring them over to our campus and have them go through a very rigorous process to learn about health care, to learn about science, to be critical thinkers.”
Rao says they received feedback from the first-year students to improve the program for this year’s summer camp, such as them suggesting more hands-on immersion exercises. In response, they’ve added specific modules some of which are related to basic life support.
DHR also purchased mannequins that will allow the students to practice drawing blood while they learn the reasons behind drawing blood from a patient and which particular vein they should be drawing from.
Dr. Monica Betancourt-Garcia, scientific director for trauma research at DHR Health IRD, expanded on what they learned about the students after the first year of the Junior Clinical Research Program.
“Honestly, what we really understood was that the students were very capable,” Betancourt-Garcia said. “We didn’t know how much we could throw at them, we didn’t know what would be too much, and what we really understood was that it’s really not too much.
“They’re hungry for this information. They want to get ahead and so, a lot of these students are here to execute.”
According to Betancourt-Garcia, who is the co-founder of the program alongside Rao, the reason for the Junior Clinical Research Internships provided by DHR is to bring what they were taught elsewhere to local students in order to impact the community.
Betancourt-Garcia recalled a time where she found it difficult to find internship programs like the one DHR is beginning to provide for high school students from across the Rio Grande Valley, saying she would have to travel to Houston or other parts of the state to receive the education she sought after.
DHR is now paying forward the knowledge they’ve received back to the community.
This year’s program has over 200 students but, according to Rao, next year it will accommodate over 400 students.
Only 50 students are taught at a time over the course of two weeks which makes the lessons extremely intensive, though as Betancourt-Garcia pointed out, the students are up for the challenge.
“I’m nervous, bro, like gacho,” Jorge Garza, a football player for Edinburg North High School, said. “Like (Rao) scared me when he said ‘24/7, you got to be on homework’, but I’m up for it.”
Garza said he always wanted to be a registered nurse and asked his GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) teacher for help and she was able to get him into the summer camp.
“It’s a very intensive two-week program and I really applaud the students who have actually just come out of high school to give up two weeks of their time and summer to come and be part of this program,” Rao said. “It really speaks to their dedication and commitment.”
