Local Clovis high school students, Scott Lichtenstein of Clovis West, Bryan Shieh of Clovis High, and Gary S. Wong of Clovis West will be starting their senior year ready to pursue their dreams of becoming a physician after spending the summer at the University of California San Francisco, Fresno as research interns in the prestigious Summer Biomedical Research Internship Program. The Summer Biomedical program selects Valley students based on academic merit, student questionnaires, SAT exam scores, and letters of recommendation. Only 12 students were admitted into the rigorous 10-week program.
Each student is matched with a faculty member from UCSF-Fresno. Together, the student and faculty work daily on a given research project. Scott Lichtenstein performed his internship at the Veteran’s Hospital in Fresno with Kent Yamaguchi, MD, and Rick Stewart, MA, in a study of skin flaps in plastic surgery. Brian Shieh’s internship was at Valley Children’s Hospital with William Hennrikus, MD, studying orthopedic pediatric surgery techniques. Gary Wong’s internship was at University Medical Center with Greg Hendey, MD, conducting a wide spectrum of research in emergency medicine. All the interns presented the results of their studies in UCSF-Fresno’s auditorium recently to an audience of families, faculty members and respective school representatives.
Over the 10-week UCSF-Fresno program, the interns were exposed to a variety of scientific issues. They shadowed emergency medicine doctors at University Medical Center, went into surgery, and visited the coroner’s office. Highlights included trips to UCSF’s main campus in San Francisco where interns toured labs studying embryonic development and protein folding, and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory where they participated in a hands-on human genome related science experiment.
When the students go back to school, they will return to their favorite subjects ranging from chemistry, biology, statistics and physics to art, English and history. However, all are unanimous in saying that they study science because, “It’s cool.”
