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Eleni Mekras wants to go into the medical field. The Westminster Christian School senior has always loved pediatrics, particularly neonatology.
“I have a brother that would always get hurt,” she says. “I spent so many hours in hospitals and waiting rooms. Ever since then I just loved it.”
Because of her medical interest, she’s in HOSA, which she says is like Model United Nations but the medical version.
In her sophomore year, she became the HOSA president, a position she continues to hold today.
She has been participating in the HOSA competitions.
“The one I do most is the Health Career Display category,” she says. “You make a tri-fold board. You present that to the judges. It has to be visually appealing.”
Her sophomore year, Mekras earned her way as far as the state event in Orlando in that category.
As president, she runs the school blood drives, about five per year.
“I coordinate the volunteers,” she says. “I organize the volunteers that attend the check-in and check-out table. I manage all the social media posts.”
HOSA also hosts an annual campaign called Swaddled in Love.
“We collect baby swaddles,” she says. “We donate them to ICUs. Holtz Hospital and South Miami Hospital usually get the donations.”
To move forward in her chosen career, Mekras did an internship at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.
“I got to shadow multiple doctors in multiple areas,” she says.
This summer she shadowed two pediatricians in private practice.
“My freshman year I did an internship at Doctor’s Hospital,” she says. “I did check in, check out.”
At the end of the internship, she was able to see doctors perform an ACL repair.
Outside of school, she’s a Youth Ambassador for an organization called ICU Baby.
“We do lots of Zoom meetings to coordinate events,” she says. “We do lots of NICU visits to give out care packages.”
The members collect items for the care packages that are donated to South Miami Hospital and Holtz Children’s Hospital.
While the medical field is a huge interest for her, diving is also important.
“Diving takes up the bulk of my time,” she says. “I compete in the one meter and three meter. High school season only allows one meter.”
She went to the Westminster swimming coach and athletic director to start a school diving team. Since then, she’s been a district runner-up twice and she made it to the state finals twice. She ranked twelfth in the state out of 26-30.
She also dives for her club team. Through her club teams she competed at YMCA National Championships this past season. She also competed in the U.S.A. Diving Zone Three Regional Championships.
For club she dove for Miami Diving for ninth and tenth grades, then switched to Ft. Lauderdale for eleventh grade and is now going back to Miami Diving at the University of Miami.
“It’s pretty cool diving there,” she says. “You get to know and meet Olympic divers.”
At school, she’s a student ambassador, helping with the tours and speaking with the families of potential students. She’s on Student Leadership, working on planning major school events such as prom and club fairs.
She’s in the Advanced Placement Capstone and Biomedical programs at Westminster and is an Emerald Scholar with more than 12 AP classes. Her Capstone research paper looked at Type A and Type B adolescents and how their focus changes with different types of music playing. She found that Type B individuals have a change in focus for the better with music piped in.
Linda Rodriguez Berenfeld
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