I decided early on in my high school career that I was going to take every opportunity and challenge that was presented to me. This included striving to be in the accelerated courses and take every AP course possible, even taking two science classes in my junior year. Biomed was no exception in making sure no rock was left unturned.
It is important to understand my track through the Biomed program, as it is a bit different than the standard. When I was a sophomore the Biomed program was broken into 3 years. Sophomore year was Fundamentals, Junior year was Innovations, and Senior year was Interventions. However, just as I was getting excited to work with the 3D printers in the Innovations class, the course path changed. Innovations, the class I had been looking forward to, had been turned into a freshman class and junior year had turned into Fundamentals 2.
I did enjoy the fundamentals because it was my first ever experience with the medical field. I especially loved my first-ever forensics week where they brought in the crashed cars for us to investigate. I also really loved the lab we did where there were nurses from the University of Mobile to teach us about phlebotomy and I was actually able to practice drawing blood, on a mannequin of course. This class is where I developed the base of my medical knowledge and it has been nice being able to reference back on experiences in this class when something involving healthcare presents itself. I know that this was Mr. Bentley's first year and I am grateful that he decided to step in. However, I do believe that the curriculum could have been a bit more rigorous. There was a decent amount of downtime and I feel that I could have even done more bookwork where we learned vocabulary or anything else related to the medical field. This is by no means to say that it wasn’t a great experience overall.
Going into my Junior year I had learned that I had an interest in engineering and this fueled my excitement for the Biomedical Innovations class where we would get to learn about the mechanical side of the medical field. Because I had learned that the blood and guts of the medical field weren't for me. I worked with Mrs. McCleery to develop an independent study where I would help her manage and help with the STEM resources as well as learn about what the medical field had to offer on the engineering side.
My interactions with Innovation in the medical field began a year earlier where I led a project that combined robotics and the Biomed program. The project was to build a life-sized “Operation” game to be used for helping students learn about human anatomy. The robotics team, along with myself, designed the mechanics and built the final product ourselves and the Biomed Innovations class 3D printed the anatomical pieces to go into the game.
I did not take an official Biomed Class in my junior year, which was supposed to be Fundamentals 2. Instead, I was in the independent study previously mentioned. This year started with the repair and reconstruction of lots of the machines that had not been properly taken care of the year before. I got the Innovations lab running smoothly and efficiently. Once that was under control I began the production of the parts for the 3D-printed prosthetic hands. I was tasked with getting the pieces ready for the now younger Innovations class to assemble. I enjoyed this project because I grew my comfort level and familiarity with the resources that we have in the STEM program.
Going into the Biomedical Interventions class was difficult for me. This is because I had a really hard time deciding what I wanted to study for an entire year. I eventually decided on Healthcare Ethics. This came as a surprise to most people. However, my rationale was that I had the opportunity to explore the engineering side of the healthcare field during 6th period, so why not study something completely different that I likely wouldn't get to study again and that could help me in the future? I was interested in this topic because I wanted to learn about what was at the core of the decision-making process for physicians and medical professionals. I was especially interested in the ethical considerations of prescribing stimulant medication for ADHD. This topic allowed me to talk with several great people such as Dr. McElroy and I even got to attend a med school class where I showed some of the students up on a practice test. This last year has been filled with much more than just ethics. We went on my favorite field trip of all time, the USNS Comfort. I could type another 25-page paper on this so reference my blog on it for more information. I also had the opportunity to shadow Mr. Edmonson, a PA in the Spring Hill emergency room. I also have a blog on this experience. There are so many other experiences that I could go on and on about that I do not have the space elaborate on in this post. There are many blogs to go back and recap on which is an essential part of the Biomed program. The blogs have been incredibly helpful when needing to recap experiences to share with people who want to know about what you have done.
Lastly, the best opportunity of my life to date has been my 6th-period independent study my senior year. In this time I have learned so much about research, development, teaching, and being an ambassador. In this class, I was given the opportunity to undertake a project in which I would build a machine that can take water bottle plastic and turn it into usable 3D printing filament. This project alone has taught me so much about what goes into doing research for a project as well as what to expect, or not expect, when bringing said project to life. I have also spent lots of time in this class presenting our resources to people who are interested in St. Luke’s STEM programs. This has helped me with public speaking and has taught me how to present to people what I have researched and developed. Lastly, it has given me the opportunity to teach younger students about what I have learned and about things that I have a passion for and that has honestly been one of the most fun and amazing experiences that I have had as a St. Luke’s student.
I could go on forever about my experiences in Biomed but there is neither the time nor the space for an entire novel in this post. I would like to thank St. Luke’s and Mrs. McCleery for the amazing and truly life-altering experiences that this program has allowed me to have. I am forever a better student and a better person because of the things that I have learned here. I hope to have many more opportunities like this in my life and this program will always be at the bottom of my heart.
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