Editor’s note: In February, The SUN reported that Pagosa Springs High School student Jayslynn Perea had been selected as a delegate for the Congress of Future Medical Leaders hosted by the National Academy of Future Physicians and Medical Scientists. Perea provided the following update after attending the June conference.
Daanzho, Jayslynn Perea shizhi. Shi ma Helena Vicenti, Shi ka’ee, Nickolas Perea. Pagosa Springs High school la escuela, Gost’its’aadi shizhi, Jicarilla Apache and San Domingo Pueblo mizhi.
Hello, everyone. My name is Jayslynn Perea. My parents are Helena Vicenti and Nickolas Perea. I am 17 years old and I will be returning to Pagosa Springs High School as a senior this coming fall while working on dual credentials to receive my undergraduate degree in child psychology and nursing. I currently work with our community health representatives with the Jicarilla Apache Health and Fitness Center, fulfilling an interest in nursing.
Recently, I went on a trip to Boston, Mass., for a congress I was invited to attend by the National Academy of Future Physicians and Medical Scientists. It was created by a man named Richard Rossi who is the founder of the Congress of Future Medical Leaders.
This congress was set up for teens all over the country who have a passion or interest in going into the health care/medical field, think about the well-being and future of the health care industry, or have invented or are currently working on studies to improve studies throughout the world.
Through this congress, I met other young delegates that thought, talked and felt the same way about the medical field as me. I was able to meet young scientists/inventors, doctors and professors, and deans from the top Ivy League schools in the country.
There were also mentors who interacted with us delegates by showing us new QR codes that showed information, their published work or books, and/or their apps they created or worked with to help with their work.
One great lesson that was very pronounced during the congress was using AI as an assistance not only in college admissions, but also in surgeries, papers, reports or to even help with publishing a book.
Mike Kegins is an entrepreneur who has always had a fascination with technology and computers who presented his book that he and his son wrote together. They used an app called ChatGPT to help them with an outline to create a book called “Master the Art of the Interview.” This book that Kegins wrote with his son actually showed progress in his son’s ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder).
A young scientist named Herman Bekele won the Young Scientist Challenge Winner for creating a soap bar that was a treatment for skin cancer at only 12 years old. He is now 15 years old and encouraged us as delegates to strive for wanting more than just settling for less and gave us tips to make a successful career in our research we want to do in the future.
Tim Nelson was another presenter who I got to meet. He is a physician scientist who created cardiovascular regeneration and to inspire solutions to real-world medical problems. Nelson presented about cardiovascular regeneration and how he started with doing the research by starting with a little girl named Bella who was diagnosed with congenital heart disease and began her life with open heart surgery for the first two years of her life. Their creation uses the left side to take on the role of doing the right side of the heart’s job to provide blood flow to the body and into the lungs called palliative surgery. After her surgery, Bella started doing heart rehabilitation to bring the heart back to be healthier and stronger by using STEM cell shots and in a bioreactor rehabilitation machine. This continued to develop into a program called Heartworks that brings ideas to cure congenital heart disease in adolescents just like Bella and in adults.
During the congress, Richard also gave us tips about how to have what college admission officers call having a “slight edge” and told us how to use these tips to get into college, find a job in the future, and for when we complete our dreams and goals in the future with changing the medical field or in any other field we as delegates go into.
This congress really opened my eyes to another future for the health care field and what I can accomplish as a future doctor.
I would like to thank our legislative council members and the late president, Edward Valarde, for helping me on my trip to go to Boston, Mass., for this congress. My family and I are very grateful that I’ve had this opportunity, and now I will be making my decision on choosing between going abroad in July 2025 to Hue, Vietnam, with the National Academy of Future Physicians and Medical Scientist for a medical internship — to experience the life of a doctor or nurse in the medical world through watching and helping in surgeries, research, assisting doctors and other medical experiences — or to return back to the Congress of Future Medical Leaders once more before starting my journey to college life.
