New Haven Middle Schoolers' Experiential Visit to Yale School of Medicine

“When did you realize you wanted to be a doctor?”

“What encouraged you to not give up on your dreams?”

“Do you get disgusted when you do surgery?”

These were some of the many questions that 19 sixth to eighth grade girls asked Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, MD, James C. and Sarah K. Kennedy Dean of Research, Mayo Clinic Florida, on April 11, 2025, during a Zoom videochat, as part of the “Brains & Beyond: Neurosurgery for Young Minds” event at Yale School of Medicine (YSM). (Quiñones-Hinojosa is also known as “Dr. Q.”) The students attend New Haven’s Family Academy of Multilingual Exploration (F.A.M.E.), Fair Haven School, and John S. Martinez Sea and Sky STEM School. In addition to the engagement with Dr. Q, YSM MD students and a few faculty and staff guided the middle schoolers through hands-on experiences with stethoscopes, suturing, ultrasound, reflex hammers, and intubation on a mannequin. The middle school students also toured the Cushing Center in the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, during an afternoon filled with curiosity, mentorship, and joy.

The idea for the day began when the YSM MD Class of 2025 asked Dr. Q to be their graduation speaker. Class Co-presidents Alicia Stephan and Adrian Acuna Higaki—who organized the Brains event—explained that when Dr. Q accepted the invitation, he challenged the class to find a way they could have an impact on the world, especially the surrounding communities. After brainstorming, Stephan and Acuna Higaki decided they wanted to do a community outreach event for local students. “We were extremely excited about this challenge, not just to have an impact on the New Haven community, but also to make our connection to Dr. Q and his commencement speech even more personal,” they explained.

For Dr. Q, helping others, including helping others dream big, is personal, leading to his idea for the challenge. At age 19, Dr. Q, who had grown up poor in Mexico, migrated to the United States, unable to speak English, but dreaming of a better life for his family. For two years, he worked as a migrant farmer, painter, and welder, while putting himself through school and learning English. A scholarship to University of California Berkeley started him on a path that eventually led to his current role at the Mayo Clinic as an educator, neurosurgeon, and researcher trying to find a cure for cancer. Dr. Q is deeply grateful to those who helped him along the way, including a missionary who gave Dr. Q his own eyeglasses when Dr. Q was young, inspiring Dr. Q to want to give back. Dr. Q also is co-founder and president of the Mission Brain Foundation, which is dedicated to expanding access to neurosurgical care worldwide. ​Dr. Q also is motivated by the people he sees helping others worldwide.

To plan the Brain event, Stephan and Acuna Higaki reached out to the New Haven Public Schools community, and were connected with Seeds of Success or Semillas De Triunfo, an out-of-school program designed to inspire girls to consider STEM careers by countering gender stereotypes through relatable role models, promoting STEM confidence through STEM workshops and hands-on activities, and encouraging alignment between cultural and STEM identities through community-based STEM projects that develop leadership skills. Seeds of Success, which originated in Puerto Rico, has a prominent chapter in New Haven, engaging middle school students from primarily underserved, immigrant backgrounds. “So many of these students’ stories might echo that of Dr. Q's upbringing, and we thought that the opportunity to connect them would be a great,” Stephan and Acuna Higaki shared.

The class co-presidents are grateful to Seeds of Success for co-hosting the event, and to the YSM students who helped them plan the day, lead the hands-on stations, and guide the middle school students between stations. “We really wanted to prioritize safety and fun for the participants, and the volunteers really took that on,” said Stephan and Acuna Higaki.

When the younger students arrived at the medical school, they watched a short clip about Dr. Q from the Netflix documentary series "The Surgeon's Cut." Then, engaging with medical students, they practiced using a stethoscope to listen to their own, their classmates’, and the medical students’ hearts and lungs, as well as knot tying in preparation for the suturing station later in the afternoon. The middle school students also drew pictures of brains. (One student drew an impressive picture of Dr. Q.)

During the video Q&A with Dr. Q, he enthusiastically and warmly responded to questions. He told the students he had not thought of being a doctor until he was entering his final year of college. He had not known any doctors, he explained, though his grandmother was a respected midwife and town healer in a small rural community, and he remembered how much she enjoyed helping people, aligning with his goal to help people. When asked if he got disgusted doing surgery, he described getting blood on his face and in his hair, but shared he feels blessed that people trust him to take care of them and their loved ones.

Regarding advice on how to prepare to be a doctor, Dr. Q provided advice that he said would prepare the students for anything they want to do, emphasizing there are many ways to help people. First, he said, be a compassionate human being, which he described as the best quality a doctor can have. Additionally, he said, it is important to figure out how to enjoy success without it going to one’s head—to build confidence, and to learn how to overcome adversity and failure, which builds character.

At the end of the Q&A, Dr. Q provided advice to all the students. He told the medical students that what makes a great leader is making others believe they can do anything. To the middle school students, he said, “remember, the reach of dreams is only limited by how much you can imagine,” and then added a neurological reference, noting there are more synapses in the brain than stars in the Milky Way, “so there is no limit to your imagination.” Dr. Q told the students speaking to them was the “highlight of his week,” and that he was “so proud of the medical students.”

After the video conversation, the student visitor broke into small groups, rotating through experiences including suturing, intubation, ultrasound, and practicing reflexes, as well as the visit to the Cushing Center. Stephan and Acuna Higaki shared that in planning the day, “we tried to include activities and opportunities that may not traditionally be available to the students.”

Reflecting on the day, Dr. Q shared that this was the first time he had created a challenge in exchange for delivering an address; based on how successful the YSM experience was, he said it would be his “modus operandi” going forward.

Stephan and Acuna Higaki expressed appreciation for support in planning the event from many people and offices, including: the principals and teachers at the participating middle schools; Daniel Diaz and Jesley Ortiz from New Haven Public Schools; Carolina Machado de Salas-Römer and Giovanna Guerrero-Medina, PhD, from Seeds of Success; YSM Associate Dean for Medical Student Diversity Marietta Vázquez, MD; Maria Parente and Angel Martinez Acevedo from Yale Pathways; YSM Director of Student Programs Deanna Calvert; Simulation Manager Joy Grabow and Assistant Professor and Director of Community Outreach Tatiana Moylan, MD, from Yale Center for Healthcare Simulation; the Yale Office of New Haven Affairs; and Yale student volunteers Caroline Valdez, Ami Mange, Samiksha Chopra, Kashif Qureshi, Sasha Stogniy, Juan Ruiz, Maddie Mckean, Jose Anzueto, and Sebastian Benavidez.