Faculty, residents participate in 'Doctor for a Day' event for middle and high school students

Department of Ophthalmology faculty and residents participated in “Doctor for a Day,” an outreach program for youth of color in the greater Seattle area. The aim is to inspire and encourage middle and high school students of color to consider medicine or other healthcare careers.

Doctor for a Day events, organized by UW School of Medicine students, features hands-on stations. Ophthalmology faculty and residents set up tables for students to explore vision testing, color vision, stereopsis, suturing practice, viewing the retina with indirect ophthalmoscopes, viewing their retina with a camera, and other fun items like a cataract and AMD simulator. 

Doctor for a Day focuses on increasing the number of underrepresented students in health professions. Research shows that without intervention in elementary school, underrepresented students may lose interest in science and math by their teens and discount their abilities in those subjects before finishing high school.

Early socialization and achievement experiences can have a substantial impact not only on the pursuit of STEM and health careers but also on community health outcomes. A diverse health professional workforce leads to improvement in health care, access to providers and health facilities, and equitable health for all patients.

More than 150 students in grades K-12 attended the Jan. 18 event in the Health Sciences Education Building on the Seattle campus. The neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, and pathology departments also participated.

Drs. Karine Duarte Bojikian, Michelle Cabrera, Brian Chou, Shu Feng, Laura Huang, and Miel Sundararajan represented the ophthalmology faculty. Residents Drs. Grant Howell, Sam Kusher-Lenhoff, Nicole Mattson, Zesee Mekonnen, Gayathri Tummala, Cameron Ward and Ryan Yanagihara joined them.

For more information about the Doctor for a Day program, visit their web page.