DeBakey High School, BCM partnership an important one
By Dana Benson
Baylor College of Medicine recently held an open house for freshman students at the Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions and their parents.
The teens and their parents heard from current medical students and residents, then the parents participated in a question-and-answer session with college leaders while the freshmen headed to a much-anticipated anatomy lab.
DeBakey High School is a small school, so it's no wonder that students and parents didn't even fill up Cullen Auditorium, the largest one at BCM.
Beneficial to both
Its size doesn't diminish the fact that BCM's partnership with the Houston Independent School District high school is important to both organizations.
The high school is one of HISD's magnet schools. Opened in 1972, the school offers students interested in science and health careers an alternative to the traditional high school experience.
They receive a solid introduction to the fields of medicine and science, including five years of math, five years of science and four years of health science (biochemistry, microbiology, histology, advanced anatomy and physiology, radiology, medical terminology and ethics).
In addition, the school offers a strong college prep program. Students take an SAT prep class as part of the 10th grade curriculum and are required to sit for the SAT. They take college level courses and have summer mentorship opportunities in the Texas Medical Center and at other colleges and universities.
Students have access to the Baylor College of Medicine library and are closely associated with BCM in other significant ways. Ten graduating seniors each year even receive a $300,000 scholarship through the DeBakey High School/University of Houston/Baylor premedical program.
Student success
There is no question of the benefits to the students of the education offered at DeBakey High School, which is ranked one of the best high schools in the country by U.S. News and World Report. The school boasts the highest attendance rate in the district, and 100 percent of the students pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS). Students consistently outscore the state and national averages on the SAT, and 98 percent of the graduates are college-bound.
Baylor College of Medicine benefits from this partnership as well. DeBakey High School students are some of the best and the brightest in the city, and in addition, the school's population is an ethnically and culturally diverse one.
Bright future
Certainly all DeBakey High School students won't end up pursuing careers in health and science, just as not all students in the performing arts high school become actors or entertainers.
Some will, however. A study of more than 2,000 graduates from previous years showed that 56 percent of the students had maintained interest in and were pursuing studies leading to careers in the health sciences, and 30 percent indicated that medicine was their first career choice.
Even if only a handful of the freshmen who visited BCM for the open house pursue medical or research careers, it would be well worth it. One of them could become a life-saving physician or researcher, or maybe even the next Michael E. DeBakey.
It's a good bet a least one of the students will end up attending medical school at Baylor College of Medicine. In fact one young freshman boy declared, "I'll be back here for medical school."
See you then.
