Luring Students Toward Science

Hundreds Attend Program at NIH

More than 400 young people participated Saturday in the SciLife2008 health and biomedical science career planning program at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda.

The free day-long event included workshops for students and their parents about careers in the health and biomedical fields, as well as financial aid guidance and college planning sessions. The conference drew high school students from across the region.

A goal of the SciLife program is to draw minority students into medical careers because they are underrepresented, said Cassandra Isom, an event organizer. The effort is part of a national trend in secondary education that has pushed high schools to offer more classes related to health occupations, officials said.

Vince and Vance Moss, twins who graduated from Oxon Hill High School and went on to become doctors, were the keynote speakers for Saturday's event. The brothers have traveled to Afghanistan twice at their own expense to help treat injured civilians.

Students attending the conference were provided with lunch, prizes and a tour of the National Library of Medicine.

Sponsors of the event included NIH, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the Marian Koshland Science Museum, Ballou Senior High School's science department and the Georgetown University School of Medicine.

Isom said most of the spaces at the conference were reserved weeks before registration closed. The students, she said, had a real sense of "excitement and energy" about the program.