My name is Jessica Seron Birnbaum and I am a senior in high school. I have always been interested in the world of medicine, but I am unable to intern due to my age. In order to intern in a hospital or clinical setting, you have to be eighteen. For students who know they want to be in medicine but don’t have a way to learn more about it, it can be incredibly frustrating. I felt stumped for a while because I was in what I call “the in-between”.
Today, it almost feels like you have to already be an intern and a medical scribe, as well as have the cure for cancer, in order to get into college, never mind medical school. So, I did a little google search: “How to get into the field of medicine young?” Both my parents are not doctors, so I had no pull there, and me being only 15 at the time proved even more difficult to get into a professional setting due to my maturity and legal requirements.
I stumbled upon a website that advertised schools in the south that have athletic training programs for high school students. I had never heard of an athletic trainer before, despite unknowingly having one at my own high school, and I became incredibly interested. I dove in and researched what it took to be an athletic training aid and found that although there were hundreds of programs available for people who had never even taken a first aid class before, they all happened to be in Texas. I do not live anywhere near Texas, so I did another search: “High School Student Athletic Training Programs in My State.” What did I find? Absolutely nothing. I was very confused. I would’ve thought if this was the one thing people my age can do, why aren’t more people doing it? Why isn’t anyone doing it? But I also know that a normal fifteen-year-old doesn’t know that they want to be a doctor, and they definitely don’t know how many different careers in medicine there really are (there are a LOT).
I talked to my parents about how I felt, and my dad said to me, “Well, if you want to do something, just try it.” I thought the same thing: what could be the worst that could happen, the athletic trainer at my school would say, “no”? Then I would move on to try something different. I really had nothing to lose, considering I was starting from nothing. So, I went into school the next day, found a small office in the basement of my high school, and met the first athletic trainer I worked with. Unfortunately, he was retiring that year, but I was still able to learn basic first aid and CPR before he left the school. This was a huge step in the right direction, though. I had gained a little knowledge under my belt and a new year to start completely fresh.
I went to our athletic director with my idea, and he thought it was a great plan. When the new athletic trainer came to our school, I got all dressed up, printed out a resume (which was pretty bare, but still a resume), and handed it to her. She sent me an email later that day stating how she was excited to work with me and to start the new year together. I was surprised I was actually getting somewhere with this. What was first a bare idea out of a simple Google search had grown into an internship for my sophomore year. I learned so much that fall. I was quizzed on different bones and muscles in the body, taught how to do different concussion assessments, clean wounds, and my favorite activity, taping ankles and wrists. I had gone from minimal knowledge about the body to a whole new understanding.
That summer, I applied to a program (EXPLO – https://explo.org/pre-college-program) my trainer suggested to me which had an Orthopedic and Sports Medicine concentration. I got in and went for ten days to learn more about the field I was slowly falling in love with. There, I met so many doctors and got taught how to be professional, as well as a few different types of fields in orthopedics. I came back with lifelong lessons as well as friends I still talk to today.
I finally had a plan, but that athletic trainer moved to work at a college. So, I started over, but with more information. I did the same thing as before: print a (more extensive) resume, introduce myself, and hope they wanted to work with me. I had to do this for every trainer we lost and gained. What I didn’t realize is that this happens a lot.
I am now in my senior year and working under the sixth trainer since I started. I was invited to apply to the National Student Leadership Conference(NSLC) NSLC medical intensive program for another summer program and got a lot more certifications and information under my belt. I found out that I really want to go into orthopedic sports medicine surgery and specialize in knees, ankles, and shoulders. I have fallen in love with athletic training, and I have found family in the teams I work with and their families. Everyone in my community has been so supportive of me and my program. So, I deemed it a success. To finish off my project, I completely redid our athletic training room. I organized, inventoried, painted, re-shelved, and did a lot of mopping. It looks completely different now, and I felt as though my project had been a complete success and had reached its full potential.
But I was sitting at dinner with my family one night when my mom asked me what I was going to do for my senior capstone project. I hadn’t thought about it, but what I realized is that my high school project had been a success. So why not think bigger? I had decided to talk to some other schools and see if they were interested in implementing my program in there schools. I wanted to share my success with other people and hope it sparks an interest in them too. You never know until you try, right?
Over the course of my three years working as an athletic trainer’s aid, I have learned a lot about what to do and what not to do. When young teens decide they want to go into medicine but don’t know how, or have a love of sports but know they can’t play forever, I want them to find my page when they do that Google search. I don’t want them to feel lost like I did. So, the’ Jessica Seron Athletic Training Internship Program’ was born. Here, on this website, is my story and a compilation of all of the things I have done for my school. I hope it gives you something to go off of, or maybe even sparks an idea of your own. Feel free to reach out with any questions or comments; this is still a work in progress and is not perfect. Of course, I am still seventeen.