对于下一代医疗工作者来说，起跑线比以往任何时候都要早，这要归功于密苏里大学堪萨斯城药学院。 在那里，未来的学生在高中和本科阶段就早早地接触到了药学。
刚刚过去的这个夏天，在药学院博士研究生德里南·桑特（Drinnan Sante）手下工作的一群学生，每周都在学校的一个新的实习项目中体验动手学习，这个项目旨在让年轻的学习者在做出任何职业决定之前，先接触这个行业。
桑特正在研究药物进入人体的方式。 更具体地说，如何将治疗只针对需要药物的大脑或身体受影响的区域。 His goal is to work towards a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, which affects 690万人口 in the United States alone.
桑特召集了一个由高中生和大学生实习生组成的团队，他们每周为他提供大约20个小时的帮助。 这个项目的目的是给学生们在实验室的经验，这将使他们在学习上有所帮助。
威尼斯人娱乐城药学院院长Russell Melchert，药学博士。他知道，早期对这门学科的介绍有助于向潜在的学生展示药学的多种职业道路。
“We like to welcome all who are interested in learning more about pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences,” Melchert said. “Whether they end up wanting to go into one of the many different areas of pharmacy practice or into research, we are trying to get students some hands-on experience and a greater understanding of the many rewarding career pathways our graduates take.”
“This part of the medical field isn’t super obvious when you’re younger,” Sante said. “You think either doctor or dentist, but there’s a whole field where you can do research and actually try to help cure diseases that aren’t cured yet, and this project is a little window into that.”
最近从西蓝谷高中（Blue Valley West High School）毕业的库珀·坎菲尔德（Cooper Canfield）在与药学博士史蒂夫·斯通纳（Steve Stoner）交谈后，获得了参与这项研究并协助桑特的机会。, the school’s associate dean for student affairs, when he spoke to the high school’s pre-med club.
“He was talking about some neuroscience research that was happening in the lab over here and I spoke to him afterwards and said, ‘That sounds interesting. 有什么办法能让我进实验室了解这些吗？’ and he said, ‘Absolutely,’” Canfield said.
坎菲尔德今年秋天进入堪萨斯大学（University of Kansas），主修化学，辅修神经心理学，并考虑将来从事制药行业。
“It’s the perfect combination of neuroscience and chemistry,” he said.
St. Pius High School senior Meet Kaur was interested in pharmacy from an early age, and her summer spent doing hands-on work at 威尼斯人娱乐城 was a step up from her earlier shadowing experiences.
“I’ll go volunteer at hospitals here and there, but it’s not the same as being in a lab and getting the experience,” Kaur said. “I’m learning before college even starts.”
奥拉西诺斯大学（Olathe North）的大二学生阿奈·查特吉（Anay Chatterjee）是这群学生中最年轻的，比其他学生早几年获得了药学实验室的经验。 他实习的很大一部分是磨练实验室安全技能，他可以把这些技能带回奥拉西北部的课堂。
“I worked in a biosafety cabinet, where you work with sterile objects,” Chatterjee said. “The safety procedures that I’m running here are really important, because we also have biosafety cabinets back in my high school.”
查特吉正在努力填补简历上的空白，使自己成为一名有竞争力的大学申请者，并有一天被医学院录取。
The older the student, the more involved the role they play in assisting Sante’s research. 对于就读于北卡罗来纳州戴维森学院（Davidson College）生物学专业的大二学生雅各布·苏奇曼（Jacob Suchman）来说，这个夏天是一个保持自己技能敏锐的机会。
Suchman研究的是纳米孔，这是实验室中常用的一种测定DNA和RNA序列的工具。
“There’s all sorts of tools that I’ve learned how to use,” Suchman said. “I’m helping Ph.D. students, like Drinnan and some of his colleagues, as they learn and understand nanopore like I am, and figure out how to use it best for their Ph.D. dissertations and other work.”
“It’s given me a great insight on Drinnan’s day-to-day life as a Ph.D. student and the challenges he has to work with,” Suchman said. “I would like to do something similar to what he’s doing.”
项目主管，Gerald Wyckoff，医学博士。她看到了这个暑期项目对初出苗头的药剂师的好处。
“It was fantastic to have students in our labs this summer and we enjoyed seeing them make connections in the lab to what they may have seen in their studies,” he said. “Our graduate students were truly an excellent asset in ensuring the success of these summer experiences.”
有兴趣明年夏天去药学院实习吗？ 联系Gerald Wyckoff，邮箱：wyckoffg@umkc.edu。