STUDENTS CONNECT WITH DOCS PROGRAM A HANDS-ON LESSON.

Byline: Naush Boghossian Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - Barbara Florentine and Billy Sim squinted through a double-headed microscope in the hospital's pathology department, exchanging observations and comments about the pink and purple cells.

``We're comparing slides of cells from a patient's pap smear from one year ago and now,'' Sim said, pointing to the cells displayed on a television monitor. ``Last year's looked suspicious. But now we see changes - there are more cancerous cells.''

But Sim is not a doctor. He is a 17-year-old Canyon High School senior who has been assigned to shadow Florentine as part of the school's new science program.

The program, in its second year, allows 30 seniors from Canyon High to connect with physicians at the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital and throughout the valley.

Canyon High teacher Jan Hayes, who heads the program, said students have worked with chiropractors, general medicine physicians, pediatricians, veterinarians and physical therapists, and have been assigned to the women's unit, internal medicine department, surgery and the hospital's emergency room.

Since October, Sim has been following Florentine and a pathology physician for two days a week, several hours a day, observing them as they dissect body parts, prepare slides and analyze tumors.

``They actually let me see what's going on,'' Sim said. ``I don't do clerical stuff.''

Students in the program, who have taken the prerequisite classes, set their own schedules and are required to spend a minimum of 60 hours per semester with the physicians. The program, which was modeled after others in Southern California, serves as an elective for which they receive science credit.

So far, Sim has seen brain matter, gall bladders, an appendix and the amputated knee of a patient.

``I like learning and I kind of chose this department because it's different - people don't normally hear, I want to be a pathologist when I grow up,' '' Sim said, adding that his honors anatomy class helped him with his hospital work. ``This lets me see the scientific basis of diseases and they all have a cellular basis. That to me is better than seeing flesh wounds.''

Like other students who have been assigned to physicians, Sim is taking a course at College of the Canyons, and his hospital work is coming in handy in his college organismal biology class.

``They occasionally talk about cellular structure and when they say centromere, I know what it looks like because I remember seeing them on slides here,'' he said. ``And I ask better questions.''

Sim plans to remain in the pathology department until the end of the school year in June.

Those involved with the program laud its effectiveness in helping direct students to narrow their focus of what to study in college.

``It directs them in a field of study they want to continue in college,'' Hayes said. ``Sometimes it veers them away from a field by allowing them to figure out it's not right for them.''

Florentine agrees, adding that the most beneficial part of the program is exposing students to different fields of medicine.

``You get exposed to something at an early age and get direction in life,'' she said. ``And one of the most important things is bringing fresh new minds to the field, exposing them and showing them it's a viable option.''

Hayes said she was very happy with the success of the program.

``I think it's been enormously successful,'' Hayes said. ``Doctors have made fabulous comments about how intelligent the students are, how they ask pertinent questions, how much interest they have in learning medicine, and I think they direct them in a way I could never do.''