Kid Doc Summer Camp inspires young minority students to explore medical careers

COLUMBIA, SC (WOLO) — A new summer camp is helping kids answer the question — “What do you want to be when you grow up?” — and its organizer hopes their answer lies somewhere within the medical field.

The free, hands-on initiative is called “Kid Doc Summer Camp” — offered through Richland One’s SOAR program.

“When I grow up I want to be a surgeon,” says rising 5th grader Muhammad Chaudhary.  “I maybe want to be a doctor,” says rising 5th grader Wysdom Scott. “I want to be an OBGYN,” says rising 6th grader Bryce Brown.

Designed by Pediatrician Dr. Nikita Lindsay, the program gives local 4th through 6th graders a chance to discover physician-career pathways through interactive labs, simulations, and mentorships from doctors and specialists in the community.

“Because I’m a pediatrician I ask a lot of kids everyday, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ And we don’t always get ‘I want to be a physician,” says Dr. Lindsay.

More specifically, she says, it’s designed to inspire students from under-represented minority communities into exploring a medical career.

On Monday, the students got to partially dissect a sheep brain. On Tuesday — kids made a breathable lung from simple household materials. And later in the week, they’ll see a cow heart up close and hear from a local cardiologist.

Throughout the week, the students will meet a local minority oncologist, trauma surgeon, and infectious-diseases doctor — all during the four-day camp.

“But also being taught by those physicians that mirror their experiences and look like them — then maybe I could help create a pipeline towards more physicians from underrepresented minority groups in the next 25 years,” she says, adding, “There’s definitely a familiarity there and a communication style that often is missed, when culturally we’re not the same. And if we can create more physicians from the communities in which we live in and where we’re coming from, then healthcare for those communities improves as well.”

The summer camp is paid for by a grant from the American Academy of Pediatrics in partnership with the SC American Academy of Pediatrics.

And most importantly says Brown, “It’s really fun!”

For a link to Kid Doc Summer Camp’s website, click here. For a link to its Facebook page, click here.