Med student 'Iron Chef'? Orientation offers cooking and counsel
BY MANDY ERICKSON
It's not brain surgery, but it's a start for first-year med students Alexander Fogel and Benson George, who sculpted a canteloupe to look like a brain as part of orientation activities for the 92 entering students.
Benson George and Alexander Fogel, entering students at the School of Medicine, were trying to figure out how they could best showcase the brain they carved from a cantaloupe. "What we need under the brain is a contrast of color so you can see it," Fogel said, pondering a bowl of blueberries. The presentation matters: George, Fogel and their teammates were in competition with another student group to create the best fruit salad.
Elsewhere on Fairchild Science Green, packs of apron-clad students were chopping ingredients for salsa, assembling strawberry shortcakes, and shredding lettuce and cheese for taco toppings. For some of the students, the evening exercise was an introduction to California cooking — one was trying to peel an avocado as if it were an orange — and for all, it was a way to get to know one another. They exchanged names, shook guacamole-covered hands, and listed their hometowns and undergrad colleges before they settled down to eat dinner and vote on the best taco toppings, side dishes and dessert.
Aug. 22 was the first day of orientation for the 92 entering medical students. Before dinner, they gathered in a classroom at the Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge where they discovered some facts about their classmates:
Born in Ghana, Australia, Saudi Arabia and about a dozen other foreign countries, more than three-quarters speak a language besides English. They hail from 39 different undergraduate colleges in the United Sates and Canada; 17 graduated from Stanford. Nine were varsity athletes, 10 are the first in their families to attend college and 51 are women. They were accepted to Stanford from a field of 6,810 applicants.
"Your classmates are the most important part of your experience," said Charles Prober, MD, senior associate dean for medical education, who encouraged the students to learn from one another as well as form lifelong friendships. "Sit back, relax and enjoy the ride."
Dean Philip Pizzo, MD, began his presentation by saying this year's welcome was bittersweet: "I'm ending my journey as dean. I want you to know what a great honor it has been to be here."
Turning to the students' journeys, he emphasized that each student will experience medical school in a different way and encouraged them to keep an open mind about the paths they choose to take — whether it's practice, advocacy or research. "You're a little like embryonic stem cells," he said, adding that students often don't realize where medical school will take them. "If you keep your hearts and minds open, you'll be pursuing things that we may not even know about today."
As medicine is a quickly evolving field, new opportunities and practices constantly open up, Pizzo noted. Since he entered the field, diseases that were thought untreatable are now routinely treated, new diseases have emerged and the way doctors care for patients has changed. "You will emerge into a whole new world of how we deliver care," he said.
Fernando Mendoza, MD, associate dean for minority advising and programs and chief of the general pediatrics division, spoke to the students about the changing face of the United States. When kindergarteners in one community speak 100 different languages, he asked, "How do you train to be a physician?"
The answer, he said, lies in better communication, understanding culture and population needs, and trust between doctor and patient — essentially, being open to the patient's world. "If you approach meeting patients with the idea that you'll learn something, it's always going to be fun; it's always going to be learning."
The next day, on Aug. 23, the students received technology training; heard from a panel of upperclassmen; learned about bicycle safety on campus; and breakfasted, lunched and dined together. And then on the last day of orientation, Aug. 24, after workshops on financial aid, a presentation on the early AIDS era and meeting with advisors, they donned their new white coats and assembled for a photograph in front of the Li Ka Shing Center — now, officially, doctors in training.
Mandy Erickson is a Bay Area freelance writer.
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