A group of more than 100 1st and 2nd-year Medical students from the Medical College of Georgia toured the Dougherty County School System's Medical Arts Academies on last week to get a look at some of the training students are getting to prepare them for careers in the medical profession.

The DCSS has a medical arts track that starts in elementary school at Lake Park Elementary, then feeds into Merry Acres Middle School's Magnet program, before completing at Westover Comprehensive High School's Medical Arts Academy. 

Wednesday, all of the students got to listen to all three principals talk about their programs before splitting up into groups and touring the three schools. 

Stephanie Myers, a former Albany resident who is a 2nd-year med student at MCG and who was part of the group who toured Merry Acres, was in awe of the technology and structure that students were being exposed to at the school. 

"I wish that I would've had some of the technology and some of the teaching components that these students have," Myers said. "I was telling one of the students that we're using a software that is very similar to the type that they're using in their math classes and we're using a very similar type of software in medical school. So yea, I wish I would've had that."

Myers urged the students to not settle for any labels that may be cast upon them for having come up from the rural south because they're much more than that. If they work hard and stay focused, they too can go to medical school, get a great education and then come back to Albany and serve a higher purpose. 

"Unfortunately I've even had people ask me how did I get out of Albany?" Myers said. "It's more than just about where I came from, but it's also remembering where  I did come from. Coming back here has provided more insight -- especially leaving and coming back -- as to how much we are medically underserved and that, how we as medical students, need to have people from Albany got to medical school and then come back so that we can serve and have more of a perspective having been from Albany."

"So I would just tell the students that anyone can do it. It's not about where you're from or who your parents are...find your goal, hang onto it and pursue it," Myers said.