Westminster Christian School senior Juan Carlos (JC) Acevedo wants to be a doctor. One of the factors that led him to decide to be a doctor was the plight of the homeless. He would see the homeless on the street and there was one in particular that caught his eye, a man who had his nose removed.
“The way the homeless are treated doesn’t sit right with me,” he says. “We, as a community, could do better.”
He’s one of the Sandwich Gang at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church. He and others gather every Thursday and make ham and cheese or baloney and cheese sandwiches that are passed out to the homeless.
Acevedo was reminded of the homeless when he went on a 10-day Blue Mission trip to the Dominican Republic.
“I stayed there for 10 days,” he says. “We built latrines. It’s insane. These people in these rural places don’t have bathrooms.”
The students on Blue Mission trips showed the villagers how to keep the latrines clean and working. While there, they slept in the church on cots.
“It opened my eyes to the disparity of poverty compared to here,” he says.
After that trip he joined a group related to Blue Mission called Reach and is now on the executive board. They meet twice a month to talk about subjects that the United Nations has deemed global problems.
They do service projects on the weekends, such as teaching people how to create organic gardens so they save money at the grocery store. Other months they might focus on water related projects.
He plans to participate on more Blue Mission trips.
Next fall, Acevedo heads to Florida State University. While there, he’ll decide whether to become a biomedical engineer and help people who need prosthetics or specialize in orthopedics.
He’s attended a couple of medical student related summer camps. One program was at Rice University in Texas.
“It was basically showing us the ropes on how to be a doctor while balancing college life,” he says. “How to study for tests while doing labs.”
Another camp was at the University of South Florida. While similar, Acevedo says it was more hands on.
“At USF we were able to go to the Tampa Hospital and they showed us the equipment the doctors use, ‘he says. “They showed us scans of the body and how to understand them and read them. They showed us how to do ultrasounds.”
They taught the students about the tech industry and how it’s growing in hospitals. And the student did a research project.
“Our research topic was how to safely organize the elderly during times of crisis,” he says. “The elderly have the highest risk of dying during a natural crisis.”
He also attended a conference at Florida International University last summer.
At school, he is a member of a National Honor Society, the English Honor Society, the Science Honor Society, the History Honor Society (Ro Kappa) and GOALS, the club that sets up soccer play dates for autistic children.
He enjoys playing with the kids because he used to play soccer and basketball but had to give up the sport in favor of academics. However, he continues to be an athlete – he is a sprinter on the Westminster Track Team. He’s gone to the state championship track meet as a member of the 4 x 1 relay team. He made the top three in the 100 and 200 at the district meet and went on to regionals.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
Comments are closed.