About 19 students from Harriet Tubman Elementary School traded in their backpacks for white coats Wednesday thanks to Howard University’s “Mini-Med School.”
The partnership between Howard University and D.C. Public Schools brings students from the university’s School of Medicine into the classroom to introduce fourth and fifth graders about medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and nursing.
“We do have a shortage of Black and brown doctors in this country,” said Dr. Andrea Hayes-Dixon, dean of the Howard University School of Medicine.
Before the coat ceremony, Hayes-Dixon pointed out why programs like these could eventually help save lives.
“Research has shown that if your doctor looks like you and you’re from the Black and brown community that you actually live longer,” Hayes-Dixon explained. “We desperately need to have more doctors in this country that can go back into their own communities and help their own communities.”
As the ceremony began, the next generation of healers took their seats on stage at the former Banneker High School, Tubman Elementary’s temporary home.
The students waved and smiled at their Howard mentors, who had walked across the street from campus to fill the front three rows in their white coats.
It was hard to tell which group of students were more excited to see the other.
“Our goal is to help them see that there are many different career paths, especially in medicine, that they can choose, and just broaden that horizon of things that they can do in their life,” medical student Jacquanna Easy said.
Seeing the kids learn and work together as a team has been some of Easy’s favorite parts of the program.
“Seeing them apply the things that we teach them, and just seeing them feel very happy about learning,” she said.
Hayes-Dixon presented each of the young students with their white coats, which were purposely several sizes too big for them.
“So they can keep it in their closet until they get to the age where they’re in graduate school, and can realize the dream and the seed that we have planted right here,” Hayes-Dixon explained.
One of the young students who just might use that white coat one day was fifth grader Wisal Redi.
“When I grow up, I would like to be a doctor or a teacher,” Redi said.
The 10-year-old said she liked the program because she got to learn “cool stuff.”
After the ceremony, as both groups of students made their way to an after-party of cupcakes and pizza, fifth grader Jordan Lopez made his way to one of the Howard students to perform a special handshake that looked like the two would be teammates on the gridiron.
“It started with me being me and him being my favorite doctor,” Lopez told WTOP.
He said the experiments were his favorite part of being part of the “Mini-Med School.”
“Me and my team did the most explosions,” Lopez said.
Next year, Lopez is headed to middle school, but said he would like to go on to become a doctor or surgeon when he gets older and acknowledges it may be a tough job.
“If you’re like a kid doctor, it might not be that hard,” he said.
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