Giving Future Doctors a Helping Hand
TouroCOM's MedAchieve Program Help Underserved High School Students Envision Their Path to Medical School
For students who yearn to become doctors, but can’t imagine how to wrestle their goal into reality, Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine (TouroCOM) offers MedAchieve, a safety net of education, encouragement and support. The unique two-year after-school program, offered at all three TouroCOM campuses, provides high school students with mentors to guide and cheer them on, and to share ongoing advice.
Hannah Reinle, now a second-year Touro medical school student from Cornwall, New York, learned about MedAchieve through her high school’s morning announcements.
“I was taking my first human biology course and was intrigued by how intricate we are, which led me to apply to MedAchieve,” she says, adding that once accepted into the program, her eyes were opened to all the possibilities in medicine. “I loved the lectures and the hands-on sessions, and it sparked the idea that I could maybe be a physician one day,” she recalls thinking. “Hearing about medical school from my mentor helped answer a lot of questions that I might not have had the opportunity to ask elsewhere.”
When Kailee Loiodice was in high school, she told her guidance counselor that she wanted to be a doctor but had no idea how to go about it. The counselor told her about MedAchieve, which gives students from underserved communities a road map to medical school.
MedAchieve’s curriculum mirrors medical school, providing students with a practical understanding of basic medical sciences. Some of the presentations, explains Loiodice, included going to an anatomy lab and holding organs from human bodies as well as using Narcan to treat people who are overdosing on drugs. Loiodice was mentored by a TouroCOM student, with whom she still keeps in touch. “I reached out to him when I was applying to medical school and taking my MCAT,” she says.
Now a MedAchieve program coordinator, Loiodice also attends TouroCOM. “I am really grateful I’m here,” she says. “The people are amazing, and I love being able to give back to the community where I grew up.”
Raffaele Lostumbo, TouroCOM Class of 2027, is Loiodice’s friend and fellow MedAchieve participant. “I realized from a very young age it is the only thing I can remember wanting to do,” he says of medicine. “MedAchieve allowed me to connect with a mentor who has been one of the most important people on my path to becoming a physician. She has helped me with so many aspects in undergrad as well as medical school.”
Nadege Dady, Ed.D., dean of Student Affairs and clinical associate professor at TouroCOM, shares that MedAchieve offers a way for “students to see themselves on this path in ways they could not before participating in the program. Mentorship and experiential learning, the cornerstone of MedAchieve, is crucial to encouraging students to continue in STEM careers.”
