ROCHESTER — If you ask 17-year-old aspiring biomedical engineer Jeffrey Radek Jr. of Rochester how his interest in practicing medicine developed, he might say he took AP Anatomy as a junior in Old Rochester Regional High School it’s what influenced him prior to his recent invitation-only event experience. National Youth Leadership Forum: Medicine this summer cast off any remaining doubt and solidified it. But a mother’s intuition may have caught on before he did.
“My mother, Jeffrey’s grandmother, was coming from Connecticut and after a few trips her SUV flipped. So in 2019 we spent all of Christmas in Rhode Island with her in critical condition in the hospital,” Tisha Giles recalled. Radek, Esq., noting that her son Jeffrey was 15 years old at the time. “When I took Jeffrey with me to see her for the first time, he helped me clean the blood and glass from my mother’s head. Her skull was stapled, she had 2 or 3 days of pooled blood, but none of it bothered her. And my mom was like, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t want to scare you,’ and he was like, ‘No, not at all, Grandma.’
“So this whole thing triggered something in my head like, okay, we need to take his interests very seriously. He was very comfortable in this medical environment, even the nurses were impressed.”
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So, earlier this year, when the Radeks unexpectedly received word in the mail that Jeffrey had been invited to stay at tufts university in Medford for an exclusive 10-day program that offered hands-on medical experience not typically extended to high school students, Giles-Radek knew this was an opportunity his son couldn’t miss.
“My husband and I are a long way from science, and all of his friends are interested in other things, so I’m like, OK, we should do this show to see if this is what you really want to do,” Giles said. Radek. “It was expensive, but it was worth it… Where else was I going to get this experience?”
Giles-Radek noted that staff at ORRHS He had to have nominated his son to be on the show, but they still aren’t sure who it was.
10 days at Tufts University
“It’s something you don’t forget,” Jeffrey Radek said as he described seeing and touching donated human hearts and lungs, one of many firsts the ORRHS senior experienced while at Tufts June 23-July 1. “It was surreal.”
Radek said that every day on the show was packed with activity. “One day we did simulations where we created splints, slings; we learned phlebotomy, we practiced on both a large vein and a small vein, and we used physical models with this fake blood, so if you got it wrong, you would get everything on yourself,” said. “We learned how to stop someone bleeding using these prosthetic arms, which was tricky but great practice, and we also covered how to check if the scene is safe.
“That same day, we also saw two live surgeries: a man had colon cancer and it was about removing cancer from someone’s liver, and the second was someone who had prostate cancer, so both were very interesting.”
But the more action-packed learning that took place was just one component of the show. Radek says the daily opportunities to sit down with healthcare professionals from a variety of medical fields and at various stages of their careers have helped solidify the vision he has for his own future. “I learned a lot about the residency from talking to a lot of people who went through it or are in one now. I’ve met a few people who went through the residency, but I didn’t have a clear idea of what’s going on.” he said.
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There was also an element of social awareness to all of this, which Radek says he appreciated. “We did these group presentations about the people who gave our groups their name. Mine was the ‘Drew group,’ named for Dr. Charles Richard Drew, who was part of the creation of blood banks during World War II and also a big part of the Civil Rights Movement,” Radek said, noting the irony of Drew’s death after being denied a blood transfusion because of his race. “So, being a black man who wants to be a part of medicine, it was great to know that he was with people who believed in the same things as me.”
COVID vaccines impressed
When it comes to his specific area of interest, biomedical engineering, Radek says academic experiences in school prepared him for it, and the National Youth Leadership Forum (NYLF) at Tufts confirmed that entering this area of medicine It would be his professional goal.
“I think it probably started in eighth grade when I started enjoying science classes more than anything else. Then as the years went on I got into chemistry in second year which got me interested in learning about atoms and science So I think the third-year anatomy class is really what sold me,” Radek said, also pointing to his third-year AP Biology class as a contributing factor. “But also, I’m not a person who jumps right into a 12-foot pool, I like to dip feet first, and I feel like that’s exactly what (NYLF) allowed me to do.”
When it comes to what he finds inspiring about his chosen field, Radek says that growing up in the age of COVID and vaccine development has left an impression on him about the important role biomedical engineering plays in people’s lives. “That’s the kind of difference I want to be able to make,” he said. “When you think of pandemics, you think of this sense of fear, and what I think is so great about these scientists and professors is that they are fearless and brave enough to just dive into the mouth of the beast and come face to face. … dealing with these diseases… To be a part of that is just a dream of mine.”
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Tufts students shared their interests.
Aside from the knowledge and practice gained throughout the 10 days at Tufts, Radek says another definite gain was the camaraderie he found when he placed himself around peers who shared his interests.
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“I think a lot of people my age aren’t quite sure what they want to get into, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I mean, that’s why it was such a great experience to be a part of something with people who were so sure of what they wanted. and so interested in what they were doing,” he said, noting that he had made new friends from all over the country.
“When I arrived on campus to pick up Jeffrey, it was incredible to see him surrounded by students who were just like him, who want to make a difference, who want to be a part of making cures and medicines,” Giles-Radek said. “He’s an excellent baseball player like his brother, he has friends, he’s very social, but when it came to his interests in math and science, he was always lonely.”
a clear path
Currently, Radek says he’s not quite sure which college he wants to attend, but as fall approaches, his list of top picks is nearing its final form. And while Tufts University is at the higher end of that list when it comes to tuition costs, he says that after his time there, it’s hard not to think about what it would be like to attend full-time.
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“I’ve only scratched the surface of what Tufts is like … but it’s definitely very high on my list,” he said. “I think what I’m going to do is go to college for four years, then I’ll probably try to get more experience in the field for another year, then do the boards and MCATs and go to med school. Then after that it’s when you do your residency”.
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Meanwhile, Radek continues to independently investigate as his gears continue to turn on how to make his ultimate goal a reality, now with a much clearer view of the trajectory. “I talked to a lot of people on the phone and had these little interviews with people who are part of the residency, family members, doctors that I know, my pediatrician,” he said.
“At first I was almost scared of what I was getting myself into, and now after doing this and meeting all these people, it all seems so much more manageable.”
The programming of the National Youth Leadership Forum offers programs for different age groups and, in addition to medicine, other areas of learning. For more information, visit envisionexperience.com.