Surgeon for a Day: Middle-schoolers come to USC for early look at health care careers

There’s a certain look that brightens the faces of children visiting the USC Surgical Skills and Education Center.

“You see the light bulb flip on,” said Danielle Brabender, MD, a resident in general surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “You can see their excitement, that spark.”

The Surgeon for a Day program brings kids from public schools — mainly in and around Boyle Heights — to the USC Health Sciences Campus to take part in hands-on activities and explore future options for working in health care. With glowing word of mouth, the pace of sessions has increased from once, to twice, to four times a year. Co-founded by Brabender alongside other residents and medical students, Surgeon for a Day aims to spur interest in health care careers among groups underrepresented in the current work force. 

Engaging fifth- to eighth-graders, with a focus on the younger years, seemed like the perfect place to start.

“We want to address the leaky pipeline, where really young kids are interested in science, but due to lack of exposure over time, we lose them along the way,” Brabender said. “Many have never seen a doctor that looks like them. We need to increase diversity in the health care workforce to serve a diverse patient population. So much of that starts incredibly young, and it’s an especially pivotal time for growth as kids are transitioning to middle school and high school.”

The program is an extension of Trauma and Careers in Medicine, an intervention for at-risk teens led by faculty sponsor Damon Clark, MD, an associate professor of surgery at the Keck School of Medicine. In his eyes, Surgeon for a Day not only feeds the medical pipeline but also benefits the long-term health of participants.

“We need to increase diversity in the health care workforce to serve a diverse patient population. So much of that starts incredibly young, and it’s an especially pivotal time for growth as kids are transitioning to middle school and high school.”
– Danielle Brabender, MD

“As a trauma surgeon, I deal with a lot of violence and injuries from violence,” he said. “Lack of education, lack of educational resources and lack of career motivation are major risk factors on the path to violence or injury or incarceration. So helping motivate kids to finish high school, or go even further with their education, is a mode of primary prevention.” 

Surgeon for a Day was kickstarted with a grant from the USC Office of Inclusion and Diversity and is sustained by support from the Department of Surgery and the JEDI-WeST DEI Champions Program. Sessions host approximately 30 students, who are split up into groups of four to six as they rotate through a series of stations, each staffed by a medical student and a resident. 

At the Surgical Skills and Education Center, middle-schoolers “scrub in” and learn using the same equipment as trainees at the Keck School of Medicine.  The machines simulating laparoscopic and robotic procedures are particularly popular, as participants rely on screens to navigate them.

“We call them ‘the little doctors’ running around,” Brabender said. “They compete on the laparoscopic trainer, which is what we do as residents. They love it, because it’s like a little video game.”

“Showing the kids USC healthcare providers who come from similar environments and backgrounds really brings home what’s possible for them.”
– Damon Clark, MD

Other stopovers offer lessons about anatomy and physiology, including supervised dissections and hands-on models of the heart and the lung that allow kids to see how those organs work. They even get to watch a beating heart in motion at the ultrasound station, where they use the instrument to image medical trainees.

“They bring out their cameras a lot, recording each other doing the ultrasound,” Brabender said.

A key piece of the programming highlights the range of jobs in health care. Providing that perspective, while also introducing the kids to diverse medical students and providers, gets to the core of Surgeon for a Day’s objectives.

“I come from a neighborhood like this,” Clark said. “Showing the kids USC healthcare providers who come from similar environments and backgrounds really brings home what’s possible for them.”

Witnessing the impact on students firsthand is personally resonant for Mayte Villanueva, the USC administrative assistant who oversees the program’s logistics.

“It’s a privilege to give back to the community I grew up in,” she said. “I always tell the kids to really open their minds to learning and envision themselves being health care professionals—because they can do it! Seeing them get excited to learn is so rewarding.”

Clark’s commitment to youth outreach, including his leadership of Surgeon for a Day, recently earned him an award for volunteerism from the American College of Surgeons. While grateful for the recognition, he defines his involvement a little differently.

“It’s just part of my career,” he said. “As a physician, you must attack a disease at multiple levels. For cancer, you have surgery, chemo, radiotherapy, screening and all the rest. It’s the same for violence or injury or incarceration. Trauma and Careers in Medicine and Surgeon for a Day are just another level for me to attack disease. 

“These are two avenues out of many to address violence,” he continued. “If people stop calling it a social or economic problem and recognize it for what it is — a health problem — those many avenues might get the resources that we need in order to do more.”

Learn about USC general surgery residency’s community engagement and justice, equity, diversity and inclusion efforts.