The morgue at the local hospital is not your usual stop on the high school field trip circuit.
Unless you’re enrolled in the after-school program at Common Ground High School in New Haven, and your mentor is a Yale Department of Psychiatry resident.
Psychiatry residents Jessica Isom, MD; Amanda Sun, MD; and Andrea Diaz Stransky, MD, arranged a visit to the morgue at Yale New Haven Hospital on February 27 for students enrolled in an after-school medical arts program at the high school.
Common Ground offers several opportunities for high schoolers to participate in programs that expose students to careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.
Isom, Sun, and Diaz Stransky agreed to mentor the students in the classroom, and – at the students’ request – arranged a visit to the hospital morgue. Following a tour and a lecture on the brain, the group went out for pizza.
Isom said she frequently volunteered while in college and medical school, so she welcomed the opportunity to help students at Common Ground.
She said the boys and girls look up to their mentors. “Any professional coming in to talk, they show an interest,” she said.
The residents are reviving an outreach program that was started about five years ago by Ayana Jordan, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, when she was a psychiatry trainee at Yale. Jordan organized an internship for high school students at a local restaurant, where they learned about food, nutrition, and how to cook. Jordan and other residents mentored the students through the process.
Isom said this year’s residents decided to revive the relationship, and are looking forward to collaborating on more events with the students.