2023 Stanford Healthcare Tri-Valley Clinical Academy
This year, the Stanford Tri-Valley Clinical Academy had 41 students participate in the program, held in Livermore from July 17 to July 28.
More than two dozen physicians and other healthcare providers from the Tri-Valley area joined us to offer the students both didactic and hands-on learning sessions. They learned about various specialties including Internal Medicine, Pulmonology, Gastroenterology, Allergy & Immunology, Emergency Medicine, Anesthesia, Urology, General Surgery, and others. Students had the opportunity to become BLS certified, perform simulated colonoscopies, perform brain and heart & lung dissections, practice suturing and knot tying, sit at the console of the surgical robot, perform extremity splinting, and many others. They had an overview of the pathway to becoming a physician as well as many other healthcare professions, such as physician assistants, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and nurses.
The Stanford Tri-Valley Clinical Academy is a great opportunity for high school students to learn more about the field of medicine and healthcare.
The 2021 Stanford Healthcare Tri-Valley Clinical Academy led by Dr. Alice Cha and Dr. Neel Chari has come to an end.
Our program’s speakers were from diverse institutions, including hospitalists from Stanford’s General Medicine section, community physicians, and UCSF faculty. We are very appreciative of their collaboration and time. It was a welcoming challenge for us to teach physical exam virtually and has transformed us into more versatile teachers. Our student’s demographics have also been more diverse this year. Most of them are from local high schools in the Tri-Valley area, but also include those from the peninsula, East Bay, southern California, and even New York. We are very pleased to also have been able to grant 1 full scholarship to a low-income family’s student based on her merit. Although it was 100% virtual, students received individual kits to participate in interactive suturing, dissection, and CPR training sessions. The Academy has sparked students to consider careers as physicians, physician assistants, and nurses.
Clinical Academy Highlights
LUNCH WITH THE DOCS: A Webinar Series
Stanford Health Care—ValleyCare Clinical Academy hosted a week long free webinar series which included lectures from Stanford Healthcare ValleyCare faculty, clinicians and researchers. Students also had an opportunity to hear from medical and physician assistant students to gain an insight of their experiences as well as network with different medical professionals.
COVID-19 Lecture by
Dr. Jake Scott
Physician Assistant Student Panel
Interview Skills & Resume Building by
Michelle Hart
Medicine Panel
First Annual Stanford Healthcare ValleyCare Clinical Academy 2019
Our first Clinical Academy was a great success! Thank you to our first students for their participation. Many thanks to the numerous volunteers for providing the high school students with a fun, interactive, medicine-packed two weeks. Some sessions included cow heart dissections, performing a bronchoscopy of a pig lung, suturing on pig’s feet, and many more lectures and simulations.
Thank You MERTES Education Staff!
We would liket to extend a big heartfelt thank you to the MERTES Education Staff! We are greatful for all your support during the Clinical Academy sessions!
Clinical Academy Highlights
You can see our highlights video at Clinical Academy 2019.
Insulin Workshop
Pulmonary Medicine Workshop
Cardiac SIM Man Workshop
Splinting Workshop
Emergency Vehicles Tour
CPR Certification Exam
Stanford ValleyCare Clinical Academy 2019
Our Stanford ValleyCare Clinical Academy made its debut in July 2019 and hosted 18 enthusiastic high school juniors and seniors. We are very proud of the summer session our community was able to provide our local students. It hosted a diversity of workshops that included hands-on experiences such as splinting, a heart dissection, suturing, and a Life Flight helicopter tour. It included students performing a bronchoscopy on a set of pig lungs, something that many practicing providers have not even experienced in training. Although we had a busy schedule with our interactive group workshops we were also able to spend time with the students on 1:1 basis during lunch, make chit-chat with them on ice cream and Starbucks runs, and during our Palo Alto’s campus tour and picnic lunch. Our students impressed us, not just with their intellectual aptitude and skill, but with their sense of social responsibility and compassion toward their peers.
We thank the ValleyCare Medical Staff: Dr. Idakoji, Dr. Krishanmohan, Dr. Eric Lai, Dr. James Lin, Dr. Douglas Liou, Dr. Vanni Manthiram, Dr. Ramford Ng, Dr. Chirag Pandya, Dr. Kavita Raj, Dr. Jake Scott, Dr. Dan Smeester, Dr. Phil Wolfe, Dr. Thomas Yu, and Dr. Yen-Hua Yu. You went out of your way to deliver memorable lectures. You captured their interest by being an authentic role model and many students were inspired by your personal stories.
We wish to highlight the fantastic speakers who came to teach from the Palo Alto campus: Dr. Charles Liao, who taught bedside ultrasound and drew beautiful pictures on the digital board. Dr. Jessie Kittle, who blew our minds with the idea of medical hypnosis. Dr. Jonathan Chen, whose analytical mind perked the interest of our statistically savvy students. Our Stanford medical students Kaitlin Corbin, Tanmaya Sambare and our Stanford PA students Erin Lencioni, Patricia Lee, Sabina Seyster participated in a student panel our high school students didn’t want to end. The Hurley and Margaret Smith duo somehow made quality improvement one of our loudest and exciting activities.
We are grateful that we connected with the medical community outside of Stanford Healthcare. Dr. Joseph Vu, assistant program director at Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara, gave a board talk that demystified the pathophysiology of diabetes. Dr. Gita Surti, family medicine physician, introduced outpatient medicine and led the session on history-taking with guest patients. Christina Rita explored mental health, Dan Roskowski taught us about LGBT issues in health. Melanie Carter showed us how the DaVinci robot can peel a grape. Greg Hatten analyzed our student’s petri dishes. Dr. Christie Tung, Dr. Larry Kwan, Dr. Connie Chen, and Dr. Lauren Levine spoke about their unique career pathway and provided words of wisdom on work-life.
The MERTES Education Center involvement was a blessing in so many ways. We appreciated their beautiful teaching facilities but more importantly the enthusiasm for which they prepared for the students. They led a large number of our workshops, all of which were highly rated by our students. We could not have asked for a stronger group of educators and colleagues to work with. Thank you again Sonia Field, Karen Lounsbury, Jeanette Kitt, Joanne Berven, Michelle Long, Shannon Stewart, Lora Maloof-Miller, Nancy Weckel, Rose Roesch and Mary Kay Dunn.
Thank you, Matthew Murray, for setting up one of our most exciting workshops (the pig lung bronchoscopy!). Thank you, Christy Kerling, for organizing all our surgery related lectures.
Many students stated one of their favorite sessions was the Health Care Career Fair where the students learned about physical therapy, pharmacy, nursing, social work, respiratory therapy, dietitian, case management, wound care, and development careers in the hospital. Each group developed a unique method of presenting their careers and we thank you for all the extra time you spent to excite the students onto your fantastic career paths! We apologize who we may forget since there were so many wondering volunteers but thank you Lisa Hunter, Lisa Pedro, Maria Raymundo, Matthew Murray, Sandra Lieu, Susie Adel, Sarah Razon, Selina Hu, Shake Sullivan, Vivian Wong.
This Clinical Academy would not have been possible without the involvement of the entire Stanford ValleyCare Hospitalist group. We appreciate the direction of Dr. David Svec and Dr. Minjoung Go. We especially thank Jeanette Conley and Danielle Hendrickson for keeping us organized. We could not have lugged all the materials to MERTES at Livermore without Chad Anderson’s handy truck. We thank Kelly Hauer-Laurencin, who connected us to Alameda county’s new EMS company and took on several sessions. We love the enthusiasm of every hospitalist who taught a session. We hope every doctor involved finds this experience rewarding. It is refreshing to recognize that community physicians can also be a positive role model to youths.
Basically, THANK YOU!!! It took more than 70 volunteers to put this session on, and it would not have been the same unless all of you were involved. This Clinical Academy was truly a testament of the strength of our community and we are humbled and more grateful than ever to be a part of it.
Yours,
Dr. Alice Cha and Dr. Minh-Chi Tran
Stanford University School of Medicine
Clinical Assistant Professors