“Our Vitals is a student-led organization that strives to connect and empower students in medicine/healthcare worldwide while spreading awareness on global health issues,” Founder and Co-Executive Director Angela Lee said in an email interview.
Our Vitals was originally a medical health club at MHS that Lee started, but it is now an international organization. Lee and her officers created informational Instagram posts and hosted workshops, which opened her eyes to the vast amount of people interested in medical/health-related information, opportunities, and events, as over 80 people signed up to be a member of the club, Lee said.
Lee explained the decision to expand Our Vitals from a school club to a bigger organization was a joint decision among her officers. “My fellow officers and I worked towards increasing students’ interests in the medical/health field and also keeping them engaged and supportive of each other. We wanted to impact a bigger community of students, so we brought Our Vitals outside of school and opened up positions for anyone, anywhere.”
The organization is working towards making medical/health related resources more accessible and affordable for students in low-income and minority communities, Lee said.
Lee also discussed her organization’s plans for the future. “We plan to release our first magazine issue that our members have been putting so much effort on this summer. We’re working towards raising funds to print out hard copies of our magazine issue so we can share them with communities consisting of students underrepresented in medicine (racial/ethnic minority, first-generation college, low-income, etc).”
Lee also elaborated how her organization came up with their name. The origin of the name, “Our Vitals,” first started with the word “Vitals,” Lee said. “According to Merriam-Webster, the word ‘Vitals’ means ‘internal bodily organs that are essential to life.’ We combined ‘Vitals’ with ‘Our’ because we wanted to give off the message that medical/health professionals are extremely important to the world, that we as students have a vital role towards the improvement of our society, and finally, that it is important for students to work together as a community towards in order to create a better future,” she explained.
As for underclassmen who want to go into the healthcare field, Our Vitals will be opening up both director and member position applications this June or July, Lee said. She advised that getting involved with different activities would help students see what was right for them.
Lee offered her advice and guidance regarding navigating high school and various other topics. “Feel free to reach out to me (angelaylee.co@gmail.com) if you have any questions or want to have a quick coffee chat with me online; I’ll be more than happy to help with anything, whether that’s related to high school, classes, organizations, applications, interviews, internships, etc. I have also recently got accepted to a paid research internship at one of the top hospitals of the U.S.; I’ll be happy to share how I got accepted,” Lee said.
In a Zoom interview, Samantha Fernando, the Co-Executive Director for Our Vitals, said that she believed Our Vitals’ biggest achievement so far was dedicating a month to having guest speakers from various areas of studies come speak to the students through a Zoom meeting. Students were able to ask questions and get advice regarding their prospective career paths.
The speakers’ career paths included computational neuroscience, biochemistry, and pre-medicine. Our Vitals also gave members the option to watch the event’s recording if members were not able to make it, and constantly reviewed feedback from their audience to improve their future workshops, Fernando said.
In addition to speaker events, Our Vitals also offers various workshops for its members, Fernando added. These workshops included topics like how to land research internships while in high school or college, how to get medical experience in high school, how to make the most of one’s high school experiences, how to navigate college applications for aspiring pre-med students, and more, according to their Instagram @ourvitals.
On the other hand, Fernando said that the greatest difficulty with starting the organization was coordinating times to meet with the directors and members of Our Vitals. “We have members from all over the nation. It’s crazy and amazing. Everyone has busy schedules, so it makes it harder to collaborate,” Fernando said.
According to Our Vitals’ website, https://ourvitals.wixsite.com/ourvitals, members stretch from Austin, Texas to Chicago, to New York, to Argentina, to parts of Asia, and Australia.
Fernando’s favorite aspect of this organization is how it enables her to meet others outside the Bay Area, she said. “It’s been really eye opening, [meeting others on her team], especially hearing from those that don’t live in the Bay Area and hearing their stories of what they have available to them, as their resources are different than ours.”
Fernando also stressed the importance of gaining experience in the healthcare field if students are deciding to become a healthcare professional. “You might say you want to go in, but you don’t really know unless you get the experience. If you go and you’re like, it’s not really for me, that’s totally okay. It’s a really difficult field.”
“As far as joining Our Vitals, we will be opening positions soon,” Fernando added. “But if you really really really want to join right now, you can direct message us on Instagram right now (@ourvitals) and we will get back to you.”