Experts in the Community: Educating Future Healthcare Providers

For many teens, there's more to summer than just taking a break from school. Some build even more education into their off-time, many in preparation for lifelong careers. Recently, the Atlanta Center for Reproductive Medicine hosted students from the National Youth Leadership Forum to provide an inside glimpse into the world of reproductive medical careers for interested groups of students from all over the country.

"ACRM was contacted last year by the local program director of NYLF," says Nancy Sowder, RNC, Director of Clinical Referral Services, "and we saw it as a great opportunity to continue our community education efforts."

The national non-profit program's goal is to help young people make well- informed choices about their future careers by providing them with opportunities to explore various fields in depth. In addition to the field of medicine, honors level Junior and Senior students can attend forums around the U.S. in the arenas of defense, intelligence, law, and technology. Students expressing interest in medical careers interact with leaders in the field and are involved in 10 days of hands-on activities at medical schools, research facilities, and hospitals.

Two different groups of teenagers chose to come from various states to Atlanta, where they viewed the ACRM facility and interacted with the staff. The students were instructed on the various causes of infertility, its diagnosis and treatment. The teens were encouraged to ask questions and speak with physicians, nurses, technicians, and all other team members about the in's and out's of both acquiring and performing their various jobs.

"Since we really pride ourselves on working as a team here," says Sowder, "the doctors emphasized our team approach to medicine, especially on the unique nature of infertility patients' needs." Students learned about what an infertility patient goes through, not only medically, but emotionally as well.

"As an example of how infertility can shatter dreams, our psychologist used an illustration that the students could relate to by asking them to imagine getting ready for and going to their graduation ceremony only to find that their name wasn't called," Sowder noted . "When the psychologist explained what it would be like to do everything you felt you were supposed to do and the outcome was not what you expected; then the cascade of events, such as losing grasp of any college or job plans that were contingent upon that diploma... they understood."

"It was encouraging to hear several of the young people express that the visits to ACRM inspired them to continue the pursuit of careers in medicine."

ACRM's community education activities today could lead to inspired research studies and compassionate clinical practices to help even more infertile couples in the future.

Meet the doctors of ACRM the Atlanta Center for Reproductive Medicine

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