Issue link: http://catalog.e-digitaleditions.com/i/568388
79 country. We have these two giants and we don't have any interaction between the two. So it seemed natural to start to offer this to more of the student- athletes and give them an opportunity." Turek witnessed a similar program while he was at Duke University, but that was just through the neurosciences department for two or three wom- en's basketball players. "To my knowledge there is nothing anywhere else in the country like the program we have," Turek said. "is is a one-of-a-kind thing." Long, Iowa's head swimming coach since 2004, was the first coach to participate. Eight of the student-athletes in the 2015 program were from swimming and diving, three from rowing, three from track and field, two from women's tennis, and one from men's gymnastics, women's gymnastics, spirit squad, and wrestling. "You have this massive hospital that you drive by every day and now not only are you involved in seeing patients at times, they are heavily involved with meeting people who are working on these pa- tients," Long said. "It is such an amazing partner- ship to have a world-class hospital, university and athletics department coming together to provide opportunities for these student-athletes." All athletes are eligible to participate as long as they demonstrate interest in working in a health care field. An informal session was held in spring to explain and market the program. e student- athletes completed an application to indicate areas of interest and why they would be a good fit for the program. e athletes were then matched with at least one (most had three) health care profession- als based on their interests. "In order to get into medical school you need a lot of experience and job shadowing hours and they want to see that you have experience in different parts of medicine," said Meyer, who wants to be a surgeon. "roughout the year when I'm busy with wrestling, it's hard to get the hours other students U niversity of Iowa senior Samantha Wag- ner majors in biomedical engineering and wants to attend medical school. Alex Meyer is a junior pursuing a degree in human physiology and chemistry. He, too, sees medical school in the future. Wagner, from Marion, Iowa, and Meyer, from Pleasant Hill, Iowa, are like hundreds of students at the University of Iowa, well-known for its medi- cal center. Where Wagner and Meyer differ from most is that they are also Division I athletes. Daily life for Wagner, a diver, and Meyer, a wres- tler, consists of practice, class, and maybe more practice. Flourishing in academia with such chal- lenging requirements is no easy chore. Finding spare time to shadow health professionals was nothing more than a pipe dream. Until now. anks to many parties -- most notably Dr. Jo- seph Turek and UI head swimming coach Marc Long, and Andy Winkleman and Kara Park from student-athlete academic services -- a summer program called Health C.A.R.E. (Career And Re- search Exposure) was created to allow UI student- athletes to shadow health care professionals when their schedule allows. Twenty-one Hawkeyes participated in the most recent program. It included orientation in the spring and shadowing from June to August, with a lecture every Friday provided by various health care professionals. e success of this unique program is described by three words: location, location, location. "On the same physical campus on the west side of the river we have a world-class medical center in which we offer the entire spectrum of health care and premier graduate programs in each of the spe- cialties of health care," Turek said. "en you also have elite Division I athletics that are over here on this campus in arguably the best conference in the