The department of medicine is proud to welcome local high school students to our campus during the summer months. Mainly juniors and seniors, the students have all demonstrated interest in and aptitude for science. Visiting Albert Einstein College of Medicine, hearing from our faculty, and getting a look inside a lab, can all spark the type of interest that can turn into a future career.

On July 19, students from Rocking the Boat met with leaders including Yvonne Ramirez, vice president of Human Resources, and Monique Fortune, director of student success in the Office of Diversity Enhancement, before splitting up and visiting labs, including that of Dean Yaron Tomer, MD. Rocking the Boat is a Bronx-based non-profit founded in 1996 that teaches young people to build boats and does conservation activities on the Bronx River, including scientific observation and data collection. This marked the second summer that program participants have spent a day at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, organized and hosted by the department of medicine.

The summer of 2024 also saw the first visit from summer program students from the Bronx River Alliance, whose goal is to protect and restore the Bronx River corridor. According to its website, the Alliance uses the river as an “outdoor classroom,” bringing both students and teachers there to learn about the ecology of the river and experience nature in their own backyards.

High school student Jose Nieves attends the Bronx Engineering and Technology Academy and was part of the group from the Bronx River Alliance that visited Albert Einstein College of Medicine last summer.

On July 25, 20 students heard firsthand about careers in medicine from our own Dr. Alyson Myers and Anand Kumethekar, MD, from the division of rheumatology, before heading off to visit labs in endocrinology, cardiology, and genetics. Dr. Tomer again showed his commitment to pathway programs for high school students by opening up his own lab.

Bronx native Jose Nieves, 16, who attends the Bronx Engineering and Technology Academy, was among those who visited. He was connected to the summer program at Bronx River Alliance after taking a natural science course last spring as part of Lehmann College Now, which allows qualified New York City public school students to take college courses for free.

“I’ve always been interested in how things work,” says Nieves. “Science is so wide ranging and has something for everybody.” At the Bronx River Alliance, “We do studies on the river, look at the air temperature, the water temperature, how clear the river is,” he says. “We note whether it's rained recently and how much debris is in the river. And we also look at the wildlife, because one telltale factor to see if an environment is healthy is if there's wildlife around it.”

During his visit to Einstein he was looking forward to visiting the lab of John Greally, MD, professor of genetics, and he was impressed by the brief talk given by Dr. Kumthekar. “It’s crazy how autoimmune disease can affect your body, and we don’t always know what causes it or how to treat it. We’ve come a long way but there is so much we as a society still have to figure out, about medicine, science, our world.”

Nieves is keeping an open mind about his future career. “There are so many aspects of science that I truly don't have any idea what I want to do yet, and I don't think I'm going to find out until college,” he says. “A career in science is a challenge considering where I'm coming from, but I feel like it's possible to pursue whatever I set my mind to.”