March 27, 2008 — Twenty-one Charlotte Amalie High School students donned the white coat of the medical profession in a ceremony at the Schneider Regional Medical Center Thursday evening.
The ceremony, held in the Charlotte Kimelman Cancer Institute’s Bennie and Martha Benjamin Auditorium, kicked off this year’s Medical Explorers White Coat Mentoring Program.
The nine-week program lets students interested in the medical profession experience firsthand the day-to-day life of people in the medical field. The program brings the students into contact with medical professionals who can provide unique insights into academic and career opportunities, according to a release from the hospital.
Students will participate in the program three days a week from 3:30 to 5 p.m. The program commences on April 2.
Amos Carty, president and chief executive officer of the hospital, told the ceremony attendees that this program represents the commitment that the medical center has to the community. "At the end of the day, we are all servants of the community," he said.
CAHS Acting Principal Carmen Howell urged parents to support students throughout the program.
Howell said that she hopes the program will encourage students to pursue careers in health care, and "to make significant contributions to improve health care here in the Virgin Islands and beyond."
"It gives them a chance to see, feel and touch the things that they would experience in the healthcare profession, and convince themselves that this is what they should be doing," she said.
Wearing her new white coat with pride, Tamara Robinson, a junior at CAHS, said she has always known she wanted to work in health care.
Her mother, Maureen Anthony, who attended the ceremony with her daughter, said Robinson studies most of the time. "It's books, books, books, read, read, read, computer, computer, she is always researching" said Anthony.
Robinson isn’t yet sure where she will attend college, but is interested in Princeton because of its medical program.
Anthony said that Princeton would give her 17-year-old daughter "options to know what she really wants to do.
The program is administered at the hospital by Bennie Acosta-Donastorg, who has been with the hospital for 24 years. She said the program’s success will be measured by the young health care providers who come back home and serve their community.
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