Pathology Provides a Hands-On Experience for High-School Students

The Department of Pathology recently hosted a group of 25 sophomores from Cathedral High School in Manhattan in collaboration with HealthCorps, a non-profit initiative to provide health education and mentoring for teenagers. The students were given a chance for a behind-the-scenes look at the work of the NYU Department of Pathology at Bellevue Hospital. The event was designed to offer young people a hands-on experience of human organs and allow them to gain singular insights into human health with the aid of pathologists.

Under the supervision of Department of Pathology Autopsy Director Amy Rapkiewicz, M.D., and Pathology residents Drs. Alice Laser, Jordan Laser, and Kristen Thomas, the select group of high-school students examined the effects of various diseases and conditions on human organs such as the heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, and brain. The students learned to identify signs of atherosclerosis, diabetes, cirrhosis, lung cancer, and hypertrophy, among others, and were able to compare healthy to diseased organs.

A large part of the work of pathologists, explained Dr. Rapkiewicz to the students, is to find out what diseases can do to a human body. "In a way, we are the ones behind the curtain," she said, as she detailed how pathologists get to see the effects of diseases and the results of healthy choices. This resonated very well with the Cathedral students, all of whom had already taken advanced health classes and logged in a number of volunteer hours before they were able to visit Dr. Rapkiewicz and her team in the autopsy suite, along with their teacher Ruth Greenfield and HealthCorps coordinator Jessica Kimmes. As one student noted enthusiastically, their trip was "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—you don't just get to walk in off the street and look in here anytime you want." Dr. Rapkiewicz has hosted high-school students four times already, including a visit by mostly Chinese-speaking students from a downtown public school for whom an interpreter was present. Dr. Rapkiewicz plans to make the collaboration with HealthCorps a long-lasting effort for public service by the Department of Pathology.