Medical Professions Academy

January &By: Anna Arnett, Quinlan Couch, Alija Koira-la and Brianna Bernhardt

February

Upcoming EventsApril 4th: SMART Team Send Off / Room 008 / 6:30pmApril 16th: Blood Drive / South Gym / 8:00am-3:00pmApril 16th: Juniors to UMKC Dental SchoolApril 18th: Senior Presentations / Room 008 / 6:00pmApril 25th: MPA Banquet / Lower Commons / 6:00pmApril 29th: Senior Awards Night / Auditorium / 7:00pm

The freshmen started on a group project from Healthe Foundations in January. They were put into a healthcare team consisting of a physician, nurse, health coach, tech-nologist, pharmacist, and medical health and services manager to learn and work on a patient together. The freshmen applied for positions by turning in an application, resume, and completing an interview. In early February, the presentations started be-ing formed and included information about the group’s patient and condition. Then the students dived in on what caused the condition, the recovery plan, the effects on the patient’s life, etc. The students finished the project by formally presenting to their class. When asked about what she learned from the project, freshman Alex Cum-mins stated “This project helped me in learning to work with others better. It also really helped me with speaking in front of a crowd for the presentation. I learned a lot about the nervous system and what things you should do after a traumatic brain injury.” Another freshman, Meghana Nukala, said her favorite part of the project was “watching other people’s presentations and learning all the new information about the topics presented.” After finishing their projects, the freshmen are now starting a unit on the Circulatory System.

Freshmen

Freshmen learning how to take blood pressures with a blood pressure cuff and stethoscope (right). Students Corbin Clark and Malea Olvera doing a blood pressure lab (left).

Dani Gonzalez-Dotti, Anvitha Ananthaneni, Isabella Castro, Maci Emerick, Yiibari Nwidadah and Precious Mwangi presenting their patient and condition.

SophomoresThe sophomores started off the semester with a short review of freshman concepts with pedigrees. They then examined several different types of mutations apparent within a family tree, and explored the relationship between pedigrees and genetics. The sophomores then moved onto a brief few days involving PCR, or Polymerase Chain Reaction. As a necessity in their upcoming lab, the students took some notes over the machine, its function, and discussed its importance. Next, with enrollment heading their way, they doubled up on activities and spent part of their class to ask questions and learn more about the different options for their junior year. At the same time, the sophomores were introduced to a new lab called the Chi-Squared Lab, which involved statistical analysis and the understanding of a new tool, Chi-Squared, in order to better interpret probability of lab results. Entering the end of January and the beginning of a new month, they soon after began the PTC lab, using their own DNA in order to determine whether each individual had the gene to de-tect PTC. Lastly, the sophomores continued with their fly lab that began in August, involving the breeding and population control of fruit flies. Currently, the students are transferring new flies to their tubes and crossing together red-eyed and white-eyed flies in order to examine the following generations, and the characteristics of the gene that determines their eye color.

Sophomores Aislin Butt, Alija Koirala, Chadhve Ranganathan and Maya Shanmugam loading their gels for gel electrophoresis (above). Results of PCR ran on the PTC Tasting Gene (left).

Over the last two months, the juniors have focused their skills on various forms of lab work. They learned how to administer a single use flu test, and practiced this on willing volunteers from around the building. According to junior Rosy He, this was her favorite lab because “it seemed the most relevant to what I want to do in the fu-ture, career wise”. They then moved into a bacterial swab lab, where they performed a Gram’s Stain on samples of their choosing and examined their findings. Junior Dorina Cao enjoyed this lab because she “got to see more variations of bacteria un-der the microscope than just m. Leutus and other basic ones we always see”. Their next major lab studied how epidemiologists track diseases using an ELISA test in order to determine who was the original source of a “disease” in the class. They then turned to the more agricultural side of biology and used a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in order to detect the presence of GMOs in samples of their choosing. Their most recent lab has focused on identifying different species of fish using another imumunodetection technique known as western blotting.

Juniors Misty Scofield, Amandeep Nagra and Grace Zhu using micropipettes to add UV dye to DNA samples during the GMO lab (above). Results of different DNA samples with different markers ran through gel electrophoresis (below).

Nate McKee pouring buffer onto acrylamide gels for immunostaining (above left). Different results from the ELISA lab (above right). Valerie Bolton examin-ing bacteria swabs under a microscope (below right).Unknown bacteria collected from a school library computer mouse (below left).

Juniors

Seniors

Seniors traveled to Stowers Research Institute on January 24th. Researchers travel from all over the world to use the institute. Sireen Kenana’s favorite part of the field trip was seeing “how advanced their technology was and how helpful the robots were to research”. She said, “Instead of spending hours cleaning glassware or pipet-ting, the robots did it to make sure the researchers could focus more on the actual research”.

Senior Libby Williams works on the labor and delivery floor at Olathe Medical Cen-ter for her internship. She has gotten to see over 5 live births. The most memorable day for her was her first day because she “walked in the room and the nurse told me to hold a woman’s leg while she pushed. That was my first ever birth and it was amazing”.

Zashary Ramos-Sandoval interns at the critical care unit (CCU), which is also at Olathe Medical Center. She restocks essential items, observes monitors and reports if the patients are okay. It impacted her “on how I view patient care. It’s nothing like Grey’s Anatomy”. She said, “This is real life and each patient has a backstory. Seeing them go through something so difficult motivated me to keep advocating for them as well as helped me realize that nursing is exactly what I want to do”.

Senior Internships

CPR Manikins

Students had the opportunity to join Olathe North Medical Society to use CPR manikins from Chil-dren’s Mercy on January 14th. The realistic manikins allowed students to practice their CPR technique while the machines displayed their compression rates and depths for feedback.

MPA “Families” MeetMembers of all grades were sorted into Medical Professions “families”. These families met on January 16th for ice cream treats and to discuss enrollment. The upperclassmen mentored the underclassmen and an-swered any questions they had about upcoming classes.

Santa Fe TrailStudents Kaiya McKie, Yustina Erazo, Elle Bui, Precious Mwangi, Blayre Nye, Jessica Baugh, Aman-deep Nagra and Dani Gonza-lez-Dotti traveled to Santa Fe Trail Middle School to teach science lessons to kids. They did activities with DNA extraction, density col-umns, heart dissection and neuro-science.