Ridgewood students get inside look at medical field

marion brown/staff photographer

Zoe Singer (left) explains her project advocating for port-a-cath chemotherapy infusion to Lucy Fern, coordinator for the RHS Academy for Health Professions.

Ridgewood High School (RHS) senior Julia Sullivan got to use a laser this school year. That was pretty cool.

But more importantly, for her capstone project for Ridgewood High School's Academy for Health Professions (RAHP), Sullivan helped The Valley Hospital's Embryology Laboratory director, Dr. Kim Gleason, execute a study that could help embryologists with the laser-assisted biopsy of human embryos for genetic testing, by switching the standard biopsy procedure from Day 3 to Day 2 of development.

"Although the laser has been shown in clinical trials to be perfectly safe for use on embryos, it obviously does something that changes the way the embryo wants to break out of its shell ... That abnormal orientation of the blastocyst presents enormous challenges to embryologists who are trying to biopsy that embryo in the laboratory for genetic testing," Gleason explained. "[Julia] did show that [thanks to newer laser technology, younger and more fragile] embryos could be hatched on Day 2, the previous taboo timing, and that they would not only continue to grow normally, but they would come out of their shells in a more normal orientation."

"It was a good starting point," said Sullivan, the first RAHP student to work in the embryology lab. "They're going to continue the study."

According to Gleason, "This is very technical, the science is very complex ... Julia took this study and the information I taught her, and made it her own."

The pair hope to eventually submit a paper to a scientific journal on their work.

Sullivan is just one of 34 RAHP students who showcased their capstone projects during a symposium at The Valley Hospital on June 4.

At the same time, they showcased what's so interesting about RAHP - not just its medical focus, but the fact that students get to do hands-on work and learn about real careers while in high school. Now entering its 10th year, RAHP, which requires an application for admission, has helped hundreds of RHS students learn about the medical field and decide what they want to pursue in college (whether it be a medical-related career, or none at all) at a relatively young age. Each student graduates from the program, which begins sophomore year, after three years, having explored a variety of health-care topics.

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Ridgewood students get inside look at medical field