Students practise medicine and get access to cutting edge Robotic Surgery during the Summer Enrichment Programs at WCMC-Q

'Awesome', 'fantastic' and 'great fun' are just some of the comments from participants of this year's Summer Enrichment Programme at Weill Cornell Medical College Qatar. Students from across the region took part in diagnostic sessions based on real cases like Fox Network's House. They also practised medicine on standardised patients and visited the state-of-art Da Vinci Surgical System at Qatar Science & Technology Park in a fun packed and inspiring programme aimed at encouraging students to consider medicine and science as a career.

WCMC-Q offers three summer programmes targeting different age groups from Q- SMARTS, aimed at students in grades 7-9; Qatar Future Doctors, for those who may be interested in a career in medicine and want to know more about what that entails and finally, the Pre-College Enrichment programme, which helps prospective college students in grades 11 and 12 prepare for the SAT exam and admissions interviews, which are important aspects of getting through the college admittance process.

"These programmes have become more and more popular every year," said Noha Saleh, director of student recruitment, "we have had around 350 applications this summer and in keeping with our high standards, we are only able to take students on merit. Therefore those students who have an interest in the sciences and an adequate grasp of English are accepted into the programmes. This best prepares them for college life and professional careers later on as a high level of English will then be needed."

Youngsters on the Q-SMARTS programme, (an acronym of Qatar Summer Math & Reading Talent Scholars), threw themselves into debating sessions where they learnt important skills in communication, analyzing information and mutual respect. They also took part in quizzes and watched a film about the inspirational story of Helen Keller, a deaf mute who conquered her disabilities.

"I thought this would be all learning and hard work but actually it was great fun and I made some new friends too," said Fadma.

"I really enjoyed the debates," Anvita, a 9th Grade student said, 'I had a really great time. I hope to become an English language writer so I particularly enjoyed the English modules."

Other students on the Q-smart programme enthused about Harvey, the medical dummy used in training doctors. "It was amazing, it had real skin and you could see its lungs and it had a pulse," commented Thomas.

Qatar Future Doctors, aimed at students in grades 10-12, got an opportunity to experience what it's like to practise medicine. Dr. Hekmat Alrouh, himself a graduate of WCMC-Q and one of the Summer Enrichment Programme tutors explains, "We purposefully included many practical sessions where the students had the chance to put themselves in the doctor's shoes and get a taste of how it feels to be one," he says.

"In one week the students were able to discuss and diagnose a real life medical case that required multiple physicians and months to solve, they were able to measure the blood pressure and listen to the beating of a real human heart. They also had the chance to experiment and play with cutting edge technological instruments, mainly the robotics surgery labs showcased at the Qatar Science and Technology Park."

Student on the QFD programme, Rana Abu Al Saud, says she hopes to become a doctor some day. "I found listening to a human heart amazing, especially on the training dummy which has different heart beats for different conditions. I also thought working with standardised patients and taking blood pressure and pulse readings were great fun and gave a real sense of what it’s like to become a doctor," she said.

"We used standardised patients for the first time on this programme," explains Abdulhadi Al-Saei, a second year medical student who is helping to co-ordinate the programmes. "These are basically everyday people who pretend to have a set of symptoms to present to trainee doctors. Students on the QFD are trained how to take vital signs such as blood pressure and heart rate as well as test automatic responses like reflexes."

Michael Ayed came from Dubai to take part the QFD programme and says he thought it was very helpful in getting a taste of college life. "It has been really fun and has helped me to realise what becoming a doctor involves," he said.

Dr. Mohamud Verjee, Director of the Primary Care & Family Medicine Clerkship and the Director of the Clinical Skills Centre had a very ‘hands on’ role in working with the students and held a question and answer session. This afforded the students an opportunity of exploring ethical and personal issues in medicine in great detail.

Those who aspire to a future in medicine get a head start with our Pre-College Enrichment programme which teaches prospective college students in grades 11 and 12 how to prepare for the SAT exam and admissions interviews, which are important aspects of getting through the college admittance process.

Dr. Alrouh said, "We basically looked at some of the most fun, exciting and rewarding elements of each class we took here as students and then built a summer programme around that. I believe it is fun as well as educational for all three groups."