AKRON, Ohio — Connecting with kids is a passion for Dr. Aaron Palmer, a neurosurgeon at Summa Health.
His outreach to teens— encouraging them to pursue careers in medical fields— was on display during the Future Healthcare Leaders' Summit.
The event, organized by Summa Health, brought more than 200 students from Akron Public Schools to the University of Akron, where several workshops took place on Tuesday.
Palmer worked with groups of teens and showed them how to suture pigs' feet.
"It was interesting. It was fun. It's like a puzzle," said Tradarius Grantham, a junior at North High School.
Grantham and fellow North student Reeber Htoo both want to go into the medical field.
"I just want to learn how to fix people up— in case— so that I could take care of my parents when they get older," Htoo said.
Grantham felt that learning outside a traditional classroom setting was valuable because he considers himself a "hands-on" person.
"I want to be a biomedical scientist. I want to be able to learn the technology to be able to help people," he said.
The students are exactly the kind of young minds Palmer is trying to reach as he mentors hometown kids.
"If he can do it, I can do it too," Htoo said.
When told of Htoo's statement, Palmer said, "He's 100% correct. He's 100% correct. It's important for us to kind of envision where we want to go before we get there."
Palmer said he grew up with hardships. His family didn't have much money, and he lived with seven relatives in a two-bedroom home in East Akron.
He was inspired to become a doctor, in part because of his dad, who liked to use his hands in a different way.
"My dad worked on cars when we were younger. He would fix up cars for people in the neighborhood who couldn't afford to get them fixed up, and I always looked up to him for working with his hands," Palmer said.
Less than 5% of neurosurgeons in the U.S. are Black. Palmer hopes he can play a part in increasing those numbers.
"I had the opportunity to shadow a Black neurosurgeon down in Dayton, Ohio, and that changed my outlook on surgery, in particular, but it also gave me the interest in going into neurosurgery," Palmer said.
Part of the message of the summit was that not only can the APS students make it into the medical field, but they are needed.
"It gives me hope that I'm able to do stuff like that and it gives me confidence to drive what I want to do, drive to get towards my goal," Grantham said.
It is those kinds of sentiments that inspire Palmer to continue his youth outreach.
"I think that if we can even change the outlook of one of these students, and we change the entire trajectory of their life, I think it's more than worthwhile," he said.
The students had the opportunity to meet in small groups with physicians and other medical staff from Summa Health, Akron Children's Hospital, Western Reserve and NEOMED.
Other workshops included examining x-rays, casting, taking blood pressure and even simulating labor and delivery.
