Wake Forest School of Medicine hosted dozens of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools juniors and seniors for information sessions about the medical field during their annual Sisters in Science event on Friday.
While not exclusively open to girls, Sisters in Science is primarily intended to provide high school girls with advice about what to expect if they pursue careers in health science. Attendees tour the campus in downtown Winston-Salem, speak with current Wake Forest students about their experiences, and see demonstrations of practices like ultrasounds and mock diagnoses. Sponsored by the American Medical Women’s association, the event helps break down barriers that keep more girls from nurturing an interest in science.
“The students we have here today really want to be here, but there are so many unknowns,” said K12 Director of Science David DeLade. “Being able to hear from the students who are already here is very powerful for them.”
The keynote speaker at this year’s event was Pediatric Hospitalist Dr. Leila Hamzi DeWitt, who spoke about the challenges she faced getting into and completing medical school, the process of securing a job in medicine, opportunities she’s found to offer greater services to her community, and the demanding nature of her career.
Dr. DeWitt stressed the importance of giving energy to the things that are most important in life. She’s a hospitalist and a family woman at the same time, and integrating both of those priorities into her schedule has taken time and refinement. However, she assured the young women at Sisters in Science that it can be done, and the results are very rewarding.
“I had to figure out how to fit medicine into my life and how to fit my life into medicine,” Dr. DeWitt said. “I knew that if I was going to succeed, I needed to be happy in all of my spaces.”
The students who participated in Sisters in Science this year appreciated the advice of the women who came before them. Looking at post-secondary options can be overwhelming no matter what your career path is, and medicine is an extremely demanding and competitive field to choose. The conversations they had at Sisters in Science made the task less daunting and assured them that they had what it took to figure out their own paths to success.
“It’s okay if you don’t know exactly what you want to do,” said Parkland High School Junior Alyssa Young. “There are always options in medicine.”
Alexa Dameron, a community service co-chair at Wake Forest who helped operate this year’s Sisters in Science event, once attended Sisters in Science as a high school student herself. She’s seen firsthand how these interactions can change the course of a young woman’s life, and she hopes that she’s had the same impact on WS/FCS students this year.
“I really hope they leave here today knowing that they can make it as a woman in science,” Dameron said. “It definitely inspired me and showed me that I can be where I am now.”