MC² Helps High School Students Prepare For Medical Careers
DENVER (CBS4)- Medicine and Michelle Perez-Guevara go hand-in-hand. The aspiring neurosurgeon has always wanted to be a doctor, so when she heard about the Medical Careers Collaborative, or MC², she jumped at the opportunity.
"I looked at the program and saw the internship opportunity and I was like I really want to experience this," she told CBS4's Dominic Garcia.
The Medical Career Collaborative (MC²) program propels high school students towards careers in health care through hands-on experiences and professional development opportunities. MC² is a two-year program, with programming activities taking place at both Denver Health and Children's Hospital Colorado.
MC² students attend monthly field trips to gain exposure to a number of different areas in the healthcare field.
Thursday night students and their families gathered for a graduation ceremony at Coors Field for current students in the program.
MC² students are eligible for a paid internship at Denver Health or Children's Hospital Colorado. Once assigned to a hospital, students will be slated into an internship session in the fall, spring, or summer of their junior year. During the internship component of the program, MC² students are placed in one department at their designated hospital where they work (and learn) alongside hospital team members.
"While you're at the hospital you get to learn about what doctors and nurses do within the hospital. You also get quizzed on vocabulary from seminars we have every week. You get to learn a lot about medicine," Michelle told CBS4.
Current high school sophomores who attend school in the Denver metro area are invited to apply and, if accepted, begin participation at the start of their junior year.
In an effort to build a workforce that better represents the communities served in health care, MC² focuses on recruiting students from groups that are under-represented in the health care workforce.
"It's important for Hispanic people to see that is able to be done, but also first generation students to see that they can achieve more than people lead them onto," Michelle told CBS4's Dominic Garcia.
LINK: Denver Health
