Students from the Hazleton area are getting medical school experience while they’re still in high school. Most Saturdays this year, a group of students from the Hazleton Area Academy of Sciences has taken a bus to the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine in Scranton where they learn from medical students. “They’re teaching us what they were taught,” Amanda Houser, a sophomore at the academy, said. Like Houser, who hopes to become a neurologist, the students traveling to the medical school aim at careers in health care. They participate in the Regional Education Academy in Health — Higher Education Initiative or REACH-HEI, a program offered for the past five years. This year, the PPL Foundation provided $75,000 to continue the program, which is open to students who have faced educational or economic hurdles. Abington Heights, East Stroudsburg Area, MidValley, North Pocono Mountain, Riverside, Scranton, Valley View, Wallenpaupack, Wayne Highlands, Western Wayne and Wyoming Area schools also send students. For students, Geisinger Commonwealth will offer help as they proceed through high school and college. Houser said she and the other students at REACH-HEI study from thick binders of material. “It is a challenge,” but she said the group has fun, too, during hotly contested medical charades games and other activities. The high schoolers join the medical students for hands-on sessions while taking blood pressure or learning cardiopulmonary resuscitation. They also go on field trips to other schools, including the University of Scranton and Widener University in Chester. Angelo Perri, a senior at the academy, said he is getting a preview of the studies he will undertake while trying to become a trauma surgeon. “You get to see this before you’re in college,” he said. Heath Sakusky, a senior interested in neurology, said he has been learning medical terms, getting an idea the complexity of the body’s systems and hearing about the workload from medical students. “I was intimidated. There’s so much to learn,” he said. Source
