Guest Speaker’s talk to Medical Academy every Monday

By Trevor Andrews, Reporter

         The Academy of Medical Sciences has invited students to come to room 306 on Mondays to learn about diverse career paths. 

         Gregory Schlegal, the principal of the Medical Academy, said “It started out when Lincoln Fire and Rescue reached out to us; this put a spark in our brain, and made us realize that we could do this.”

         He said they really wanted to give students the opportunity to learn about diverse career’s.

         “The guest speakers are open to anyone that wants to come ninth through twelfth grade,” he said. 

         Schlegel said that by bringing in guest speakers during Islander Time, it has allowed the Medical Academy to meet requirements for guest speakers. 

         “I hope that through the guest speakers students can understand more about jobs, and realize what they really want to do,” Schlegel said. 

         “There are some students that by 12th grade they still have the same idea of what they want to do, and there’s other students that by 12th grade they realize they want to go through a different pathway,” Schlegel added.

         Tyler White, a spine surgeon, and public speaker said, “I decided to become a spine surgeon because I knew I wanted to help fix extremely complex problems for patients.”

         He added that he enjoyed seeing patients wake up completely fine after they received surgery. 

         “It’s tough to think of being a surgeon as a nine to five job. The main way it affects me is that I have to be available essentially 24/7. I am on call every night,” White said. 

         He said that he has been a regular surgeon for seven years, and a spine surgeon for two years. 

         “The first few spine surgeries I saw as a medical student were large deformity surgeries for children with scoliosis, it left a big impression on me,” White said. 

         White said that as a surgeon they are forced to retire as they become senile.

         “Sometimes as we age in life we don’t maintain the fine motor control/dexterity needed to do this job,” he added. 

         White said, “I went to GISH myself, so I wanted to let students know what my job is like, and how to get there.  I wish that while I was a student, we got to have health care professionals come in as guest speakers.”

         Ashley Perez, a junior said, “I haven’t gone to many of the other public speakers, but I saw spine surgery, which I found really interesting and I wanted to see some of the gruesome things.”

         She said that before she came to the public speaking all she knew about spine surgeons was that they repaired spines, but she didn’t know that they repaired other parts of the body as well.

         “I found the speaker inspirational and informational, because I decided that I don’t want to go forward with my current ideas, I have another job that I could maybe try doing,” Perez said. 

         She added that she wanted to be a labor delivery nurse or an ultrasound technician.

         “He made me understand that if I want to do something I have to put in the work, and I may not get everything I want, and may have to apply to other jobs around the state,” Perez said. 

         She said that public speaking made her realize that she needs to know the steps to get where she wants, and that she may not always get what she wants. 

         “It really surprised me that he fainted from his first surgery, and I didn’t expect a professional like him to faint from his first surgery,” she said.