Faculty, residents participate in 'Doctor for a Day' outreach event

Department of Ophthalmology faculty and residents participated in “Doctor for a Day,” an outreach program for youth of color in the greater Seattle area. The aim is to inspire and encourage middle and high school students of color to consider medicine or other healthcare careers.

Organized by UW School of Medicine students, Doctor for a Day events comprise hands-on stations. Ophthalmology faculty and residents offered three tables for the students to explore vision testing, color vision, stereopsis, suturing practice, viewing the retina with indirect ophthalmoscopes, viewing their retina with a camera, and other fun items like a cataract and AMD simulator. 

Doctor for a Day focuses on increasing underrepresented students in health professions. Research shows that without intervention in elementary school, underrepresented students may lose interest in science and math by their teens and discount their abilities in those subjects before finishing high school.

More than 100 students in grades K-12 participated in the Jan. 20 event in the Health Sciences Education Building on the Seattle campus. The neurosciences and pathology departments also participated.

Representing the Ophthalmology faculty were Drs. Karine Duarte Bojikian, Shu Feng, Laura Huang, Miel Sundararajan, and Jennifer Yu were joined by residents Drs. Johnson Huang, Nicole Mattson, and Ryan Yanagihara.

For more information about the Doctor for a Day program, visit their web page.