College of Medicine

The arrival of summer at the College of Medicine means the arrival of the annual Summer Institute, designed for rising junior and senior high school students to experience life as medical students. During three separate weeklong sessions, the program challenges their ideas about medical school and a career as a physician.

“Before coming into the Summer Institute, I was not that enthusiastic about medicine due to the typical label this field has of being boring and full of hard material,” said Jaelen Jackson, rising senior at East Gadsden High School, “but over the last week, my outlook into the medical world has changed tremendously.”

Around 60 students from all over Florida, plus a few from South Georgia and even locations such as Puerto Rico, participate each year.

“It was the best summer camp that I’ve ever been to,” said Kindia Vertilus, rising senior at Orlando’s Jones High School. “I’ve been to different camps relating to medicine, and they attempted to be as awesome as yours but failed miserably.”

As coordinator of the Summer Institute for 10 years, Roosevelt Rogers enjoys observing students during moments of insight.

One student described such a moment.

“For me, that insight came when we saw the cadavers,” said Olivia Rossel, a rising senior at Crestview High School. “It wasn’t cool and exciting in the way I was expecting it to be. It was seeing the person who died from a traumatic brain injury. My wanting to be a neurologist means he was the kind of patient I will have – the kind of patient I will lose. It isn’t the schooling that makes our field hard; it’s the kind of overwhelming emotion that comes from moments like losing a patient.”

In this program, students begin to believe that practicing medicine is within reach.

“When you see that light bulb go off in their head that ‘I can do this,’ and hear some of the students say, ‘Well, I was on the fence about medical school, but this experience has allowed me to see that I can do this,’ it really brightens the day,” said Rogers.

By the end of the week, students express gratitude for the experience and enthusiasm for medicine.

“I know that this past week has changed my life,” said Trey Walker, a rising senior at Bainbridge (Ga.) High School.

The medical student mentors hold special significance for the participants as well.

“I am thankful for the mentors who took time out of their personal lives to come and inspire a bunch of rookies and to help us follow in their footsteps,” said Mylourie Dorceus, rising senior at Orlando’s Olympia High School.

That enthusiasm often endures. The program has seen many students gain admittance to college, graduate and pursue medical school. Many make FSU their top choice as a result of the Summer Institute.

“I just saw fourth-year medical student John Turner at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare when I dropped off some Summer Institute students for the shadowing experience,” said Rogers during Session 2. “He is now doing his OB/GYN rotation. He came through our summer medical program, went to Florida State as an undergraduate student and was accepted into the FSU College of Medicine. He’ll be graduating with the Class of 2015.”

For Turner and others — such as Erika O’Neal Bernardo (M.D., ’13), Brett Thomas (M.D.,’14), Miranda Mack (Class of 2016) and Ziyan Song (Class of 2018) — the Summer Institute was just the beginning.

“I now know what it takes,” said Jackson. “I have a solid foundation to succeed in a four-year university and, even more importantly, the medical field.”

Below are more Summer Institute successes by the numbers:

• This summer, 56 of the 59 participants are from Florida.
• Those from rural or underserved areas make up 19 percent.
• Also, 19 percent come from households with $24,999 annual income or less.
• Since 2008, 118 scholarships have been provided to students, often by College of Medicine faculty members.
• Nearly a third of participants have been African-American.
• More than three-fourths of students who completed the Summer Institute have chosen science-related majors.

Learn more about the Summer Institute.