AURORA | Two years ago, Vadessa Camack trusted her pediatrician with a dark secret, and that decision changed her life.
It was “painful and terrifying,” but Camack confided in her doctor, the last person she thought would take the time to listen. Camack, then a sophomore at Aurora Central High School, told her doctor that she was a victim of mental and sexual abuse. She opened up, and the doctor at the Children’s Hospital Colorado offered a kindness that would leave a permanent mark on the teenager.
“A doctor took the time to hear my story. It was amazing to realize the doctor-patient relationship could be more than, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’” said Camack, now a 17-year-old senior at Central. “I realized that I wanted to do that every day of my life … I’m actually interested in doing pediatrics myself, because I know how hard it is for children to overcome any kind of trauma.”
Two years after that pained confession, Camack has made huge strides in realizing that goal. Camack is one of four local high school students on a straight track to a career in medicine through the University of Colorado’s prestigious BA/BS-MD combined degree program. In the fall, Camack will join Overland High School senior Yasmine Dakhama and Smoky Hill seniors Sanju Garimella and Vikasini Mahalingam for their first classes at the Auraria Campus in Denver. The four Aurora students, along with six other high school grads from across the state, will get scholarship money for their bachelor’s degrees at the University of Colorado Denver.
As long as they maintain good grades, the students will automatically be welcomed into the University of Colorado School of Medicine in four years.
“I want to give back to the community,” Camack said. “I’m hoping to help figure out ways to better the quality of medicine that’s given in Colorado.”
There was plenty of competition before these high school seniors found out they’d been accepted. The Aurora students beat out more than 100 applicants from across the state; they were four among the 45 who reached the final rounds of interviews. When word of acceptance finally came in December, the students had endured plenty of time under the microscope.
“It’s a competitive, competitive program to get into,” said Garimella, 17, an Aurora native whose family hails from India. She recalled the doubts that came after she submitted the essays, the uncertainty that followed the interviews. All of that figured into the stress she felt before she received the final email from the school in December. “I opened up the email and I saw ‘Congratulations.’ I literally jumped for joy.”
Since then, Garimella added, she’s found her father reading over her acceptance letter along with his morning coffee.
It’s really no wonder that those letters of congratulations carried such weight with these students. They’re the mark of a commitment that’s greater than what most seniors sign up for. In lieu of a four-year degree and time to make up their minds about a major, these students have signed on to an eight-year academic contract with a specific goal.
“For me, it was definitely a tough decision,” said Vikasini Mahalingam, a senior at Smoky Hill who’s close friends with Garimella. “I’m excited that I know a couple of people. But I have fierce independence. It’s going to end up being a balance of friends and career.”
Even though Mahalingam was familiar with the campus (her father is a researcher and professor of neurology at Anschutz) and even though she knew the stakes, the choice to sign on for eight years and more still gave her pause.
“If you apply for this program, you have to demonstrate the fact that you want this,” Mahalingam said. “I knew this was something that was incredible for me. Even if it is the next eight years, I’m going to be spending the rest of my life doing this. I’m so prepared for it.”
Mahalingam isn’t alone in her conviction. The other Aurora students who will head to Auraria speak with a common note of purpose and confidence. Garimella recalls an early childhood spent disassembling and reassembling her dolls and toys, insisting, “I liked the idea that you could heal a person.” Dakhama is already a volunteer at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Her interest in science and medicine stretches back to her first years in the United States; as a 6-year-old, she came to the country with her family and was fluent only in Arabic and French.
And for Camack, this eight-year commitment has a direct tie to her own personal redemption, to the kindness and empathy that helped her reinvent her life’s purpose. The Aurora Central student attaches a mystical kind of power to the study of science, medicine and, more specifically pediatrics. It’s a lure that started when she took her first courses through the Aurora Public Schools district’s health science-based LIGHTS program. The program housed at Central High, a school that’s within sight of the sprawling Anschutz Medical Campus, connects high school students to medical-centered curriculum, research opportunities and learning based at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
A note of pride creeps into Camack’s voice when she speaks about the Aurora LIGHTS program, and it’s clear the classes served an important purpose. Science was a way to conquer dark and painful demons, it was a bridge over adversity and destruction.
“I actually didn’t realize how much I loved it until I had got to the LIGHTS program. It showed me that science isn’t as hard as I thought,” she said, pointing to the bigger theme underlying her own struggles in the past two years. “I think the message is to use the remnants left from utter destruction to build something new. Build from what’s left. Don’t let destruction keep you down.”
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at 720-449-9707 or agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com