Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q) has announced the winner of its search for the best high school student research team in Qatar during the High School Medical Conference they recently hosted to encourage teenagers to explore the fields of medicine and science and consider them as future career options.
The High School Research Competition was launched by the WCM-Q Office of Student Outreach and Educational Development. The team from Ali Bin Jassim Bin Mohamed Al Thani School, who investigated how UVC light could sterilise germs in airconditioning units, were announced as winners. They will soon be heading off to an all-expenses paid trip to New York to experience the state-of-the-art laboratories at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Ahmed Musaed Al Obadi, a member of the winning team, said the competition had been a great learning experience. He said that they learned a lot from doctors and professors who advised them on how to further improve their experiment.
It’s helped me to give better presentations, I’ve made new friends and it’s taught me to have confidence in myself and whether we had won or lost I would have left this competition with all these advantages.’
The competition initially involved 21 teams from schools across Qatar who were tasked with investigating a research theme connected to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: ensuring access to water and sanitation; making cities inclusive and safe; and ensuring sustainable consumption and production.
Each team was assigned a WCM-Q mentor and had to use scientific methods to investigate their subject. The 21 teams were reduced to 15 following a judging session earlier in the year, and the 15 were reduced to the final four during the High School Medical Conference. Each team then gave a presentation before the audience and a team of expert judges from WCM-Q, before Ali Bin Jassim School were announced as winners. The other three finalists were from Bright Future International School (two schools) and from The Lebanese School.
The conference also featured four professional development workshops for teachers and students on the latest teaching techniques, college readiness as well as admissions requirements.
Dr Rachid Bendriss, Assistant Dean for Student Outreach, Educational Development and Foundation Program, said the standard of the entries to the competition had been exceptionally high.
The contest has shown that there is a real passion for science among Qatar’s young people, a passion that everyone at Weill Cornell will continue to foster, and I hope that many of the students who participated in the High School Research Competition have been inspired to pursue a career in science and medicine.’
Medicine Unlimited
The culmination of the competition came at the end of WCM-Q’s annual open house event – Medicine Unlimited – with more than 550 participants.
Students, parents and interested members of the community were all able to take a detailed look at the programmes offered by WCM-Q, meeting students, staff and faculty, and talking about the academic requirements of entering college, and the personal experiences of undertaking a degree in medicine.
Members of the teaching faculty and research faculty were on hand to explain and demonstrate medical terms and scientific phenomena through exhibits, lectures and practical experiments.
WCM-Q’s six-year medical programme comprises two years of pre-medical training and four years of the medical curriculum. There are also many research opportunities. The school offers a year-long foundation programme, which gives students a thorough grounding in English, math and the basic sciences to prepare them for the six-year medical programme.
WCM-Q awards its graduates a US-accredited degree, exactly the same as those who graduate from Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.
Application to the medical programme is currently open and students interested to apply for admission can find more details here: qatar-weill.cornell.edu/admissions.
