Bradley Wright understands what certification of the Elkhorn Crossing School’s Biomedical Sciences program means to him.
“It’s really exciting. It goes to show how important the program has become to the state,” said Wright, a Scott County High School junior who spends several hours a day at the ECS Biomedical Sciences Village.
Wright made his comment Monday night, after he and 136 other students in the program were recognized at the school’s third annual White Coat recognition ceremony.
In September, the program was certified by a state team, meaning its students can receive college-level credit for each of its four components they complete.
At Monday’s ceremony, conducted before a filled-to-capacity presentation room at ECS, sophomore students in the program received their white coats. Medical schools across the country have similar ceremonies, marking first-year med students’ entry into the profession.
The ECS students also took the biomedical sciences student oath, written by program director Julye Adams and modeled after the physicians’ Hippocratic Oath. In the oath, students declare their pride in the program, affirm their integrity and commit themselves to their studies.
Julie Flaig, mother of two students in the program, has already seen its fruits.
"The kids went to Morehead (State University) to see the (biomedical) program there, and they knew more than the Morehead professor," said Flaig, whose daughter Amanda is a senior and daughter Abbigail is a sophomore.
Junior Madison Eberly expressed much of her fellow students’ enthusiasm for the program.
"Every day we learn something new," said Eberly, who plans to become a flight medic.
For Wright, the program offers more than knowledge, but an understanding of his career goal.
"Now I know for sure that I want to go into cardiology,” he said. "That’s because we did so much (in class) with the heart."
This article orignally appeared in the Georgetown News-Graphic on January 10, 2013.