Local students take part in Discovery Days

Times Reporter

 

In early October Strathmore High School (SHS) students attended Discovery Days at the University of Calgary. Approximately 300 students from Calgary and surrounding areas attended the one-day workshop, which gave students a chance to explore different aspects and options for careers in medicine and health sciences. 

“It’s just a really positive thing to have gotten to go to. We got to go to different classes depending on our interests,” said Grade 12 SHS student Danae Baragar. 

“My bio teacher knows I want to be a doctor and I have never been in Mrs. Barwacz Riou’s class before but she kind of advocated for me because she thought I might be a good fit for the program. Barwacz Riou then came and found me and asked me about it and stuff like that, so it was kind of a nomination-based program.”

SHS bio teacher Agnieszka Barwacz Riou was in charge of determining who qualified to go, and who was interested enough to learn from the experience. 

Stanley (Yu-cheng) Liu also attended Discovery Days, opting to learn more about the forensic science side of things. 

The first thing he thinks of when trying to decide which facet of the medical field he would like to go into is as a surgeon, but said he is not sure about it.

“I’m going to most likely (be) sitting in lab, and see what happening and then go out and ask the patient if they have that symptom. I will give out (prescriptions) and if there’s surgical things involved then I will just give them to a surgeon,” said Liu.

Baragar went to the day in the life of a family doctor for her workshop, which is an area that has always interested her.

“I’m a little bit in between. I would be very happy as a family doctor and I know provinces like Saskatchewan right now they’re willing to forgive I think $140,000 in student loans if you stay in a rural community there for five years,” said Baragar. 

“So there’s stuff like that and I would be pretty happy as a family doctor. If not, and they’re kind of odd ends of the spectrum, but I would be stuck between oncology and cosmetic surgery. Not cosmetic surgery as in all boob jobs…but people who are injured in a car accident or something, a lot of reconstructive surgery, cleft lips. I think people should not be held back in life by the way that they look.”

Liu’s younger uncle from his mother’s side is the one who inspired him to be a doctor, which is one reason he is pursuing the medical field. 

“I don’t like to see people when they are suffering, especially when I can do something about it,” said Liu.

One of his uncles on his father’s side died of liver cancer, but Liu said he believes his uncle died of fear after being told he had three months of life left. He died after one month.  

Liu said some of the hospitals don’t really look at the people like people and he hopes to find out what the patients are thinking about and what psychological ways he can help them. 

Baragar, like any teen, has flipped through a few career choices in her mind while growing up. She has wanted to be a number of other things, such as a pharmacist or a lawyer, but said she has known a lot of good doctors who could be impactful and decided it would be a good fit for her.

“I think the idea of the medical doctor and the responsibilities and the amount of honour and integrity that you have to carry are very, very important things and that’s the kind of person I would strive to be so it’s a good field to be doing that,” said Baragar. 

She said a lot of the focus from her workshop at Discovery Days was about how science can be used to go into the homes and get onto a personal level to help people. She said she really enjoyed it and found it to be a postive way of thinking of things.