NJ High Schoolers Get Taste of Medicine at Hackensack Meridian Health
March 17, 2026
New Jersey high school students got a taste of medicine - specifically medical careers - in a recent program at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine.
A total of 164 students from eight high schools joined the Human Dimension and Community Programs team at HMSOM at its annual on-campus 2026 Physician for a Day programs on Feb. 18 and March 4.
Each program began with a welcome from school leaders, a medical student panel of four SOM students spanning various cohorts over lunch. During the panel, our medical students shared their paths to medical school, their current medical school experience, and offered their personal insight and advice to the visiting high school students, who came from: Hackensack High School, Jose Marti STEM Academy, Passaic Arts & Science Charter School, Paterson STEAM High School, Bergen Arts & Science Charter School, Garfield High School, Nutley High School, Passaic Academy for Science & Engineering.
The teens then got some hands-on experience with health care through interactive activities and workshops led by our faculty and students including an interactive blood-pressure activity, a series of clinical-skills simulation lab stations with manikins, an organ demonstration of a heart and lungs led by first-year medical students, trivia, and more.
The Physician for a Day program successfully offered the high school students a space to learn more about the clinical field, life in medical school, and various healthcare topics, while also providing our medical students an opportunity to interact with our community youth.
This event marked the third year of welcoming the teenagers to the HMSOM campus. Eleven high schools have participated, bringing in a total of nearly 600 students to learn what medicine is all about.
“Showing these students what a career in medicine is, and how they can work toward it, is a great way to ‘pay it forward’ to the next generation,” said Carmela Rocchetti, M.D., assistant dean of Community Engaged Medical Education.