Miami Palmetto High senior Attila Dos Santos will attend Davidson College in North Carolina on a Posse Scholarship.
“I intend to major in neuroscience,” he says. “My ultimate goal is to become a neurosurgeon.”
When he achieves his goal, he will be the first doctor in the family.
One of his role models is Dr. Ben Carson who rose from a modest background to become a renowned neurosurgeon. Dos Santos says his father has often talked about Carson’s career and the movie made about Carson, Healing Hands, has been an inspiration.
“I want to read his books, too,” he says. “We’re thinking he has a very inspiring path. Before I learned about him, I wasn’t specific about what I wanted. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. And be good in sports.”
But even then, Dos Santos says he liked the thought of being a doctor and saving people with his hands.
The first step was securing the scholarship. The Posse Scholarships are offered to students that have been overlooked in the more traditional selection processes. The students receive full-tuition scholarships for the four years from the partner colleges and universities. The students are given extra support and the program boasts a graduation rate of 90 percent.
The Posse Scholarship process has three rounds. The first is a group interview, the next one is an individual interview and the last one is a college specific interview. Students choose which institution they will attend from a list of 57 colleges and universities.
Dos Santos has an interesting background. His father is from Brazil and his mom is an Italian American from New York. He was born in Atlanta, but the family moved to New York and then they moved to Paris, France. The family moved to Florida in time for Dos Santos to begin his junior year at Palmetto.
At Palmetto, Dos Santo joined the swimming team and the track and field team. He swims the 50 freestyle, the 100 freestyle and the 400 freestyle relays. He ran the 400 and 800 meter races, however, this year he joined the water polo team and will not run track and field.
Currently Dos Santos is on the school newspaper staff as a writer. He says he wants to do a satirical column on locker room talk. In the past, he’s done stories about what you can tell about someone from their backpacks.
He’s also planning to start a blog on the Panther newspaper site.
“I’m thinking about making it political…express my opinion,” he says. “If they like it they can keep reading.”
He wants to get people out of their comfort zone. He can also present a different perspective on politics because he’s seen a completely different political system.
Outside of school, Dos Santos volunteers at Baptist Hospital in a neurologist’s office. The doctors in that practice deal with patients who have chronic pain or chronic headaches. While he’s there he mostly observes.
“I got to shadow some of the technicians. They do electro shocks to test nerve reactions,” he says. “I’ve watched people get Botox injections for migraines.”
While he found the observation interesting, he thought that there was not enough action for him in that type of practice.
“I, for sure, want to be a neurosurgeon,” he says. “Not just a neurologist. It helped solidify my choice.”
