On April 26, 1986, Irene was at a birthday party when a reactor in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded. While Kiev residents knew the basics of what happened from the outset—there had been an accident at the plant—they weren’t told much more by the government, which wanted to keep the danger of the situation obscured. Irene remembers finding a mushroom “the size of my head” growing up from underneath the pavement in her home, but everyone was still drinking the milk and water and eating food grown in the area. Finally, several months after the accident, the authorities decided to send all the children in the city away; Irene was put on a bus and told she was going to camp. She was gone through the summer. By the time she returned, her mother had died of cancer, her stepfather had left, and her brother was living alone in the family’s apartment....
At SMYSP, Irene was given a job in the cancer radiation therapy department at the Stanford hospital. In her words, she “freaked out. I said, ‘You can’t put me here; my whole family died of cancer.’ But I was told to give it a chance. . . . Being surrounded by cancer was a tremendous challenge for me, but I stuck through it.”
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[In the morgue, the students] look at the aorta of the first patient, which is dark and full of yellowed globules. “That’s scary,” says Grace. Dr. Ahmed looks up from what he’s doing. “That’s what McDonald’s does to you,” he says dryly. “Don’t say that!” chorus the students in unison. They’re laughing as they say it, but this is a serious point since fast food is the food of America, and obesity and diabetes have now reached epidemic levels in the country.
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Group by group, the students walk up on stage to present their research projects. They’re still teenagers, but they have changed: they stand a little straighter and speak with more authority. They have learned so much in the last five weeks and met so many new people. But their greatest change seems to have come from within; they have challenged themselves and discovered new strengths and abilities. They believe in themselves more than they did five weeks ago. They trust their place in the world a little more. Presentations done, they accept their diplomas with self-assured poise. They congratulate one another, hug family and friends, pose for pictures. They smile. And it is clear: they are on their way to college.
From Healing Journeys: Teaching Medicine, Nurturing Hope, by Marilyn Winkleby and Julia Steele, JD ’98. Available at the Stanford Health Promotion Resource Center, hprc.stanford.edu/store. ©2003 The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
