PROVIDENCE – Were it not for the school lockers in the hallway outside, the biomedical sciences room at Juanita Sanchez Life Science Institute could be easily confused for a professional working lab.
At one octagonal worktable, Lesly Guzman, a junior in a lab coat with pipette in hand, squirts small doses of liquid onto a diagram.
“When you have a small amount of blood, this is a way that they can be able to see if it was you or not,” Guzman explains.
At another table, three students in scrubs look through microscopes at hair follicles and brain cells, while at the far corner of the room, a gaggle of students gather around an Anatomage table, a tall human anatomy touchscreen, looking at the bones, muscles, organs and tissues of the human body.
Madeline Chisholm, lead biomedical teacher, said it is all part of a comprehensive curriculum that prepares students to succeed in health care or medical sciences-related careers.
“Anything from biotechnology to life science to fieldwork to health care, computer science to biotechnology – anything related under that umbrella, that is what we teach here,” Chisholm said.
The program, in its third year now, is helping create a pipeline for future health care workers, hopefully helping fill a sorely needed gap in Rhode Island’s workforce.
Students learn how crime scene investigations work, dissect animals’ organs and take courses on human body systems and medical interventions.
The whole curriculum has an emphasis on cancer research and treatment, which Chisholm explained is by design.
“There’s a lack of people of color going into careers in health. And because very few people in this community are entering in fields of like cancer research, for example, there’s a very high incidence of cancers among communities of color,” Chisholm said.
Juanita Sanchez Life Science Institute has about 703 students, according to Ariana Testa, the school’s principal. About 78% of the student body is Hispanic and half of the students are English language learners.
For Aidile Gomes, a senior at Juanita Sanchez, dealing with adverse experiences in health care is what inspired her to pursue a career in the field.
“I grew up where going to a doctor wasn’t that easily available for me,” Gomes said. “And I always watched other families struggle with going to a doctor’s, whether it be like a fear that they have because they feel like they won’t be treated as correctly as their white counterpart would be.”
While Gomes knew she wanted to work in health care, doing exactly what was unclear. She considered being a psychologist then a dermatologist and later a surgeon. What Gomes needed was a closer look at how health care works to help her decide – and Juanita Sanchez had just the opportunity for her.
Through partnerships with Lifespan’s Future Gen Cancer Scholars Program and Brown University, students can intern at Rhode Island Hospital. Some shadow oncologists, while others do central transport, taking patients where they need to go in the hospital.
Gomes enrolled in the oncology internship, where she saw surgeries and worked with pediatric patients. She learned surgeries were not for her – operating for hours at a time did not appeal to her – neither was treating pediatric cancer patients. But she enjoyed working with children, and now plans to do a pre-medicine program in college to eventually go to medical school and become a pediatrician or an obstetrician.
“That program really helped me choose what I might be interested in [and] what I might not be interested in,” Gomes said.
Other students expressed interest in becoming labor and delivery nurses, nurse practitioners, surgeons and medical researchers.
Students at Juanita Sanchez enjoy a plethora of academic opportunities – from participating in research projects and national scholars competitions to earning college credits – but professional experiences give them a direct window into health care as a career field.
Additionally, students get to build a network of professional contacts who serve as mentors and career consultants.
“The doctors are working with them and helping them get into college and helping them with their resumés,” Chisholm said.
All of this is possible through various partnerships with organizations like NAF, an educational nonprofit that helps schools design career-focused curricula and provides work-based training. NAF also started partnerships with Mount Pleasant High School’s Academy of Engineering and Dr. Jorge Alvarez High School’s Academies of Finance and Health Science.
“If many more students had these opportunities that we have and the skill-based learning that we have now, they would probably go a long way to their career, and they’ll be able to say, ‘I did learn this at a young age, and this has helped me surpass my goals in my career,’” said junior Josmeily Minier.
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