::::::::: December 9, 2008  ::::
South Atlanta School of Health and Medical Sciences gets trauma room eye-opener in Emory 'Pipeline'

ATLANTA - "Jacob, open your eyes, please!" pleads Montavis Fluker, a junior at the South Atlanta High School of Health and Medical Sciences (SASHMS). Fluker is trying to get a reaction from his "patient," Jacob, a mannequin playing

South Atlanta School of Health and Medical Sciences juniors Celethia Moreland (left) and Trequila Hines examine 'Jacob' for signs of trauma, as Emory medical resident Dr. Casey Hall coaches them on what to look for. (Photo by Scott King) the part of an injured high school football player. The setting is a basement lab in Emory's School of Medicine. Jacob's story is real, as is Fluker's interest in his welfare. He is one of 20 students from SAHMS who have signed up for the fall-semester version of the Emory Pipeline Project.

Dr. Sheryl Heron, assistant dean and medical director of Emory Medical School talks with SASHMS Pipeline Project students about medical ethics and the responsibility of physicians to 'do good' - even if that means keeping alive a patient who has tried to commit suicide. (Photo by Scott King)

As part their weekly visits to Emory under the university's Pipeline Project, SAHMS students spent Thursday in the school's emergency-room lab diagnosing a brain-trauma injury with the help an Emory medical student, then discussed ethical and palliative care issues with members of the medical school's staff. It was all part of the second semester of the project, begun last spring, which in the fall focuses on neuroscience and neuroanatomy education. South Atlanta students jumped at the chance to ask and answer questions about Jacob's health, and to marvel at the high-tech trauma-room technology that features a heartbeat and other life-like activity for the mannequin. Dr. Casey Hall, an Emory medical resident working with the Pipeline Project, challenged the SASHMS students with a range of questions, focusing mainly on diagnostic issues. "I always wanted to be a veterinarian, but this was really interesting," Montavis said. "When you do a test on a patient, the first thing that happens can change so you have to do it over and over again. His reaction might change." Before this, he said, "I never knew they had an Emory Pipeline program. I was blessed enough to make it in." Hall was impressed by the students' interaction with the patient and their quick grasp of complex diagnostic and ethical issues. "It was great to see them pay so much close attention to some of the details of the examination," said Hall, a former Teach For America volunteer. "And later, they really owned the examination, and took charge. They asked some very intelligent and deep questions."

The Emory Pipeline Project was the brainchild of Emory students who sought to match high school students' class work with health issues that relate to adolescence. In the program's first semester, last spring, 39.2 percent of the South Atlanta students were failing at least one course by the mid-semester reporting period. But 86.6 percent of the Pipeline students were passing all of their coursework by the end of the semester.