News
November 17, 2020Mohonasen Senior Pursuing Career as a Surgeon, choose Capital Region BOCES Program
One person dies every 36 seconds in the United States from cardiovascular disease and a Capital Region BOCES senior wants to do something about that!
Caoilfhionn “Kevlin” Boyle is driven to be not just a physician, but a cardiothoracic surgeon, and chose the Capital Region BCES New Visions: Health Career to help launch that career.
“Heart disease is the number one killer in the America and I want to be a surgeon to help save lives and determine ways to fix our problems,” said Boyle, who attends the honors-level program from Mohonasen High School.
Boyle is one of about two dozen students in the New Visions: Health Careers program, which is a one-year program that turns area hospitals into classrooms for highly motivated, academically successful high school seniors. In the programs, students learn through traditional methods (lecture, reading, research, writing and focused study), group discussions, internships and rotations. The New Visions: Health Careers is designed specifically for high school seniors interested in medical and health-related professions. Students learn through traditional methods as well as rotations in various hospital departments. Those rotations are structured observations of professionals and procedures in a career field.
“I chose this program because I am learning what I need to pursue my career,” said Boyle during a recent morning meeting at St. Peter’s Hospital.
She said she is looking forward most to doing the cardiac rounds at St. Peter’s, but is looking forward to all the experiences that are forthcoming.
“I am looking forward to cardio, intensive care, the operating room and all of the different settings to see the medical teams at work and to learn,” Boyle said.
Boyle said she was driven to medicine by a general desire to “help people” as well as “by the experiences with doctors of many of my family members.”
As to her future, Boyle is applying to the University of Central Florida and a couple of other colleges in Florida to further her climb up the medical career ladder.
“New Visions is good because it allows you to see what you want to do and what you don’t want to do and it gives you a great opportunity to get a feel for what a career actually looks like instead of just reading about it,” Boyle said. “I look forward to bringing those experiences with me to college.”
