Page 16 - Delaware Medical Journal - January/February 2019

Apollo: Youth in Medicine — Launching Careers Sean Holly; Arjan Kahlon; John Kepley; Randeep S. Kahlon, MD
What does it take to be a physician? What is a day in
the life of a physician like? What do different types of physicians
do? These are just a few of the questions that high school students like Sean Holly, a senior at Saint Elizabeth High School in Wilmington, ask themselves. A new student-run partnership between the Delaware Youth Leadership Network (DYLN) and the Medical Society of Delaware (MSD), named Apollo: Youth in Medicine, was piloted to help high school students answer these and other similar questions.
THE BIG IDEA
Like many high school students interested in the physician career path, Sean sought numerous opportunities to explore his interest. He volunteered in various medical settings. In each of these environments,
despite being surrounded by medical professionals, there was very little student/ personal connections and limited by restrictive hospital policies, he found few readily accessible shadowing options.
Realizing that there was an unmet need in the community, he outlined the problem
to DYLN Founder Margaret O’Dwyer,
and Shannan Beck, Director of School Counseling at Saint Elizabeth. Ms. O’Dwyer was instrumental in connecting him with Dr. Randeep Kahlon and his son, Arjan
Kahlon, who had been talking about the same issue. Arjan had shadowed Dr. Kahlon and wondered aloud how other students without a physician in their family might get this kind of experience. Further, Dr. Kahlon had hosted various high school and college students in the past but noted that they were most often underprepared to maximize
the opportunity. The idea of producing a program to secure shadowing opportunities with physicians for well-prepared and trained high school students was born.
In the summer of 2018, Dr. Kahlon arranged an initial exploratory meeting that was hosted at MSD by Executive Director Mark Thompson, MHSA. Mr. Thompson and Dr. Kahlon helped provide guidance on how to shape the general outline
for the program, which would include additional student education to enhance
meeting, a rough plan was sketched to
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Del Med J | January/February 2019 | Vol. 91 | No. 1