Calvin pre-med student cracks top 10 of national video contest

Summary: Calvin junior Alex Cortez landed in the top 10 of a national video
contest for aspiring doctors.

See full video story: http://www.calvin.edu/news/2009-10/reel-skills/

Alex Cortez, a junior pre-med student at Calvin, landed in the top 10 of a
national video contest for aspiring doctors.

As part of the Association of American Medical College's (AAMC)
AspiringDocs.org campaign - a Web site and outreach effort to encourage
diversity in the medical field - college students from across the country were
asked to submit a two-minute video explaining what motivated them to increase
diversity in medicine.

In his short video, Cortez says that hospitals are the one place that everyone
needs and goes to regardless of age, gender or ethnicity. For that reason,
Cortez, who is also a Spanish major, thinks it is important to remove any
barriers that stand in the way of someone being able to receive quality
treatment.

"I really get excited thinking of living in Grand Rapids with such a high
Hispanic population," said Cortez, "and being able to treat Hispanic patients,
who don’t speak English, without having to use a translator."

While at Calvin, Cortez has spent a semester abroad in Honduras, volunteered
with the special Olympics, taught ESL in Grand Rapids and he is currently
volunteering in a local hospital. He's hoping that all of these experiences
will help him better understand his future patients, providing them with better
care.

"That's something that excites me, to have a huge database of experiences to
really take that into my room, talk to my patient and really figure out who
this person is and see where they're coming from before I just make a
conclusion, diagnosis or what not."

Cortez's award comes with $500 toward the cost of applying to medical school
and a suite of AAMC publications (a $100 value), including "The Official Guide
to the MCAT."

To view Alex Cortez's winning video, visit www.aspiringdocs.org.

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Received on Mon Mar 8 14:39:07 2010