Thursday, October 1, 2026
Third-grade students from the Bayview Avenue School of Arts and Sciences in Freeport were brought on a special trip to learn from medicine students at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell on Feb. 13. The third graders got to learn from students preparing to work in various health care careers and excitedly asked questions about taking care of others and their own body.
113 Bayview students from six classes arrived with their teachers at 12 p.m. at the Zucker School of Medicine and were split into different rooms to get their special medical school lesson. The event was led by the medical school’s Next Gen Healers club and continued the fall lesson the Bayview students received when the medical students visited the elementary classrooms on Oct. 24. This is the second school year Next Gen Healers has conducted this program.
Mariuxi Diaz-Rodriguez, a second-year Zucker School of Medicine student and one of the leaders of Next Gen Healers, said that the club aims to help younger students get excited about science and medicine early, potentially helping them enter the medical field later. She explained that hands-on experiences at a young age helped her get excited about becoming a healthcare worker.
“I wanted to be a doctor when I was probably like five years old,” Diaz-Rodriguez said. “My grandpa had open heart surgery, and I remember playing around, putting Band-Aids on his scar, and things like that. Once I got into college, I learned more about health disparities and things like that, and that kind of inspired me to pursue this career.”
Natalie Montufar, another second-year Zucker School of Medicine student and Next Gen Healers leader, stated that the goal of this initiative is to provide young students with exposure.
“A lot of students from low-income or underserved communities are not really exposed to the different potential careers they can have in medicine,” Montufar explained. “Our goal as a club is to expose them not only to potential careers as a doctor, but also to careers as a nurse, an ultrasound tech, a physician assistant and an EMT, and to plant that seed in their heads at a young age to be like, ‘I have the potential to do this.’”After a quick ice breaker in which the Bayview students got moderately physically active by dancing along to a video, the college students introduced themselves and explained what they were currently studying to become healthcare professionals, which included emergency medical technicians, nurses and physician assistants.
The Zucker School of Medicine students walked the Bayview students through the process of examining a patient from the moment 911 is called to diagnosis. The Bayview students were also shown how tests such as blood pressure, blood oxygen, pulse, and ultrasounds are performed.
One of the focuses of the lesson was helping the children understand the symptoms, examination, causes and treatment of kidney stones. Many of the children in the classes demonstrated that they were paying attention to the lesson by suddenly drinking a lot of water, unprompted, after learning that kidney stones are caused by not drinking enough water, much to the amusement of their student teachers.
Riley Hall, 8, said she has enjoyed the Next Gen Healers program and wants to work in health care “for a couple of years” to save money for art school. When asked what she found most interesting about the program, she expressed that she really liked what she was learning.
“I’m learning how to take care of people, and I’m also learning about my body parts and some things that I didn’t know,” said Hall. “Before they came to our school, I didn’t really know what my pulse was. So, I think it’s just really cool to learn.”
Genevieve Philogene, 8, said she was interested in becoming a nurse, but really liked seeing all the job options and opportunities in healthcare.
“I like seeing all the jobs that other people do, and I learned a lot of stuff that I didn’t know before, like an ultrasound.”
Michael Huisman, one of the third-grade teachers at Bayview, expressed great appreciation for the opportunity to bring students to the medical school, adding that many of the students were very excited to come after being visited by the medical students in the fall. He believes this program can encourage students to be interested in science and healthcare as they advance in their academic careers.
“Just getting that experience and knowing that they can start a program like this is probably the most beneficial for them,” Huisman explained. “Especially for the ones that have an interest in learning about becoming a doctor or a nurse or anything in the field, I think it’s great that they have that.”
