Around town: Operation Med School
This one’s for you if you have a high school student around the house who is thinking that med school could be a good option for post-secondary.
A group of enterprising Grade 11 and 12 students is putting on a one-day pre-medical conference for high school peers. Run as an annual event, Operation Med School exposes attendees to many aspects of working in health care by giving them a chance to meet medics, biomedical researchers and other professionals in the field of medicine. The Vancouver event takes place on Saturday, February 18, at the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre of the University of British Columbia. (The team also runs similar events in Toronto and Calgary.) Admission includes a lunch card as well as networking opportunities with people who can help guide a future medical career.
Dear reader, I’m sure if you cast your mind waaay back (or even waaaay-er back for some), to those intense days of career planning for high school graduation, you will no doubt remember the heady mix of giddy excitement at the prospect of adulthood mixed with a good dose of nervous anxiety at making the wrong choice.
If you were lucky, you or your parents knew someone working in the field of your dreams who could give you the lowdown about it. They, or maybe a careers advisor, might have also suggested some pre-admission work experience to try the job in action and make sure of your choice. University admissions departments gave out information on how to apply; career mentors showed you how to make your application stand out through volunteering, school course choices and extracurricular activities.
And if you were really lucky, your contacts could always come up with some really juicy on-the-job horror stories in an effort to put you off.
Although gory, this is also important.
In medicine, knowing that you are not going to faint at the sight of blood is a big plus. For veterinary medicine…well, it’s more appropriate to know you could deal with poop and foul smells, both in close quarters. Just saying…
Sorting out post-secondary choices can be confusing, depending on resources available. Events like Operation Med School are a useful one-stop career shop, giving practical insight from professionals into what a career in health care might look like and topping it up with advice on how to get there.
By offering a glimpse into the medical world, Operation Med School promises students a day filled with lectures and hands-on activities…probably not the red stuff, though.
Operation Med School
Saturday, February 18, 9 am to 5:30 pm
Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre, 6163 University Boulevard, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1
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