Seventeen college students spend a month shadowing doctors at Overlook Medical Center.
SUMMIT -- At the beginning of the day, 21-year-old Candace Pallitto wasn't sure if she wanted to be an OB/GYN. In eight hours, she may change her mind.
That's the concept behind Overlook Medical Center's elite summer internship. For four weeks, 17 college students get to see the ins and outs of the medical field. The students spend their mornings learning from a medical professional, and then they're sent on rotations with different professionals.
Wednesday, June 29, is like any day. Around 8 a.m., the students file into a conference room where they drink coffee and take notes on genetic counseling. In an hour, they break into their rotations. Some will spend the day in an operating room. Some get to see an ophthamologist. Today, Pallitto was with Russel Hoffman, an OB/GYN who's been with the program since it started seven years ago.
Pallitto, a rising senior at Georgetown University, said she'll be taking a gap year, but she knows she'd like to be a doctor for the same reasons she likes to play lacrosse: She likes the team atmosphere.
"Someone's life is in your hands, and it's not just you - it's everyone you're working with," she said.
According to Clifford Sales, a vascular surgeon who started the program, the it is aimed at exposing students to the realities of life in the medical industry.
"What's it like to be a doctor? How does it impact your life? Can I afford it? And is it cost-effective?" Sales said. He said it's important that the students understand what it's like to be a medical practitioner.
"I tell them that this is real life," he said.
He leads courses every Friday that deal with the different aspects of medicine, including money, death and ethics. It gives students a chance to compare notes and share their experiences.
"Invariably, someone's seen a death and someone's seen a birth that week," Sales said.
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In the operating room, David Weinberg spent the day shadowing Glenn Forrester, a general surgeon. On Wednesday, he was performing a sleeve gastrectomy.
Weinberg, a 21-year-old at the College of New Jersey, isn't sure which area of medicine he wants to go into yet. That's why he likes the program - he gets to see different areas and the different approaches doctors take.
He can picture himself in almost every area he's shadowed, he said, except for obstetrics and gynecology.
"We'll talk a lot about careers today," said Forrester before he took Weinberg off to the operating room. "Medicine's a hard road no matter what you do."
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A few weeks ago, Dr. Russel Hoffman, an OB/GYN at Overlook Medical Center was standing at the beach. He thought the woman next to him looked familiar. In his 23 years as an OB/GYN, he estimates he's delivered 4,000 babies, but he remembered this woman. He'd delivered her four children.
He wanted to be a baseball player. His dad was one. Sometimes, if he's watching a game, he thinks, "I could've done that." But he's glad he didn't. He wanted a job that directly impacted peoples' lives.
"That's the key. The theme here is motivation," he said of the program. "My role is to motivate, and that motivates me."