For over five years, the Rivers MED Club has led the charge to connect Rivers students with the global hub of science and medicine that is only a few towns away in Boston. This year in MED Club, our members have met with professionals working in areas across the medical field, including students, physicians, and researchers working in spaces from the lab to the operating room. The club’s mission is to provide Rivers students who are interested in medicine with exposure to the field through presentations, workshops, and discussions, especially students who may not otherwise have such opportunities. So far, our members have learned to suture, helped organize our biannual blood drive, received certification in CPR, and provided insight into the medical professionals they want to see over the course of the year.

The MED Club 2024-2025 calendar of events kicked off with a discussion with Dr. Albert Kim, a Rivers parent and physician-scientist who was invited back to Rivers after a successful visit with the McCartney Mathematics Scholars last spring. Specializing in cardiac electrophysiology by trade, Dr. Kim began his talk by discussing his decision to pursue science and medicine together by earning an MD as well a PhD in physiology through the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Once he began practicing, Dr. Kim was able to treat patients with conditions interfering with the heart’s electrical system while also overseeing clinical research and drug development for these same conditions at Novartis, a pharmaceutical corporation. By the beginning of the pandemic, Dr. Kim had switched to research full time and worked as the Vice President of Clinical Research in the Internal Medicine Research Unit of Pfizer. Students were interested in how Dr. Kim coordinated incredibly high-profile projects as the company investigated treatments and vaccinations for COVID-19. Since 2021, Dr. Kim has served as the Chief Medical Officer at Cambridge-based medical technology company Cytel, where he has worked on award-winning software to maximize the efficiency of clinical trials. During the visit, MED-Club members got valuable insight from Dr. Kim about how to balance a love for science with an interest in clinical medicine.


Most recently, the club met with Dr. Christopher Gabel, a neuroscience researcher and lecturer at Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine. Dr. Gabel works with C. elegans, a species of worm, about 1 millimeter in length, that is often used in the development of drugs before testing on mice and eventually humans. He explained to Rivers students how, despite their size, C. elegans share a surprising amount of genetic material with humans, and their short lifespans allow for convenient observation in his lab. Rivers students worked to interpret various charts of light and electrical activity that Dr. Gabel uses to monitor behavior of C. elegans neurons in response to stimuli such as anesthesia and synapses, electrical impulses that pass through neurons to trigger an action in the body dictated by the brain. At the end of the presentation, Dr. Gabel mentioned how surprised he was to see that so many students enjoyed not only his work’s practical applications in a doctor’s office or operating room, but the process of running a lab and publishing research as well.

Other speakers in MED Club this year have included Dr. Patricia Barrios, a Rivers Spanish teacher and Opthamologist from Bogotá, Colombia who discussed how she became interested in eye surgery after working in a military clinic serving indigenous peoples in the Amazon rainforest, as well as Dr. Derek Stenquist ‘06, an orthopedic trauma surgeon who discussed the connections between orthopedic surgery and the carpentry that he grew up learning from his dad. Many students also recognized a familiar face when they met with Dylan Keusch ‘19, a premedical student at Cornell who decided to work as an EMT on Martha’s Vineyard and pursue research and advising in the neurosurgery department at Boston Children’s Hospital after receiving treatment for a traumatic brain injury.

However, members of Rivers MED Club are not only meeting medical professionals through classroom discussions. In the fall, the club hosted pediatrician Dr. David Chung to host a hands-on suturing workshop. With suture kits in hand, students first practiced threading string through cardboard cutouts of fun characters before moving onto professional-quality skin pads. Even working with cardboard cutouts, many found that the relaxed, excited faces of the characters contrasted with the difficulty of the task! We continued our interactive programming with an on campus CPR certification, where paramedic Jarrod MacKenzie administered the in-person portion of the course with training dummies and practice defibrillators that he set up in Revers. Finally, in assemblies or on the lunch line, you may have seen MED Club members helping out with our blood drive, whether it be running the sign up table or brandishing impressive jars of candy when selecting the winning ticket for the raffle that all donors may enter.

Both an engaging club and a Rivers extracurricular institution, MED Club offers students a casual, informal way to engage with the medical field in an environment where high school students can be hyper focused on professionalism, competition, and, for lack of a better word, having it all figured out. If you’d like to join MED Club, reach out to one of our leaders, Jack Willard ([email protected]), Lexi Tower ([email protected]), or Ryan Ferguson ([email protected]) to be added to our email list for the rest of the year. Also, make sure to look out for the MED Club announcement and table at the club fair in the fall!