The Joy and Wonder of Being a Medical Student

By: George James
December 2, 2015

It was an honor and a privilege to welcome medical students from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons to my fifth grade math class. As a teacher, I liked how the Young Doctors were very organized and they set up four stations for small groups to rotate through—circulatory and digestive systems, skeletal, and nerves and reflexes. They also had things students could touch and feel and see and models of how the body functions. They learned about the bones in the body with a human skeleton model, listened to their heartbeats with a stethoscope, and learned about reflexes with a penlight and knee reflex hammer. They also had my students pour orange juice onto crackers in plastic bags to demonstrate how acids break down food in the digestive tract.

My students were very comfortable interacting with the Young Doctors, who were donned in white coats and all. They were also very engaged and it was mainly because many of them want to become doctors and this gave them exposure to the hands on science about the human body and they got to see people that they want to be in the future—role models.

I want to thank the Columbia medical students for spreading the joy and wonder of what it’s like to be a doctor with our students and the Black and Latino Student Organization’s Young Doctors Program for organizing the visit.