They've endured hardship around the world, traversed deserts and oceans, picked crops in the fields, flirted with gangs and have even been busted for stealing cars.

    But these participants in the Stanford Medical Youth Science Program, a group of exceptionally bright high school students, may be saving lives someday as doctors or other members of the medical profession. That hope is the driving force behind the program, which annually brings 22 hand-picked teenagers to campus for an intense look at the world of medicine.

    "This program changed my life," says German Hernandez, now a junior at Stanford, where he applied after taking part in the Youth Science experience. "In elementary school, I thought it would be 'cool to be a doctor,' but then I realized, 'No, it would take too long, and the work would be too hard,'" Hernandez says. "But when I got to Stanford I found this is really what I wanted, and I saw I could do it after all."

    Participants chosen for Youth Science must qualify on the basis of their poverty, brains, competence in high school science and general motivation.

    "These kids are living examples of people who have struggled and overcome," says Marilyn Winkleby, who helped found the program and serves as academic advisor. An epidemiologist, she is a senior research scientist with the Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention.

    "Some of these students are responsible for helping to support their families. Their maturity exceeds their age," she says. "When they ask about Stanford, they ask how they can use the library. They never ask about using the swimming pool or tennis courts."

    Youth Science brings a group of mostly minority students to campus for five weeks each summer. The high schoolers live in a student residence with a group of 10 Stanford undergraduates who act as counselors, including two who serve as co-directors. Stanford faculty members provide lectures on a variety of topics in the health field, and Stanford medical students volunteer to be mentors. The teenagers are given jobs at Stanford University Hospital and at the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Hospital. Their tasks take them from the morgue to the emergency department: they observe surgery and talk to patients, sometimes chatting with anxious people awaiting operations or tests. They may also run errands, transport fragile pieces of equipment, or field phone calls. To prepare them for higher education, the students are taught study skills, including the use of computers and libraries and how to apply to colleges.

    Stephen Lee, a Stanford senior in Human Biology from Bloomfield Hills, Mich., was an associate director of the program last summer and will be a co-director this year.

    "A year in the life of one of these kids consists of unimaginable hardships. Some are refugees, and some have to work 30 hours a week to help support their families," Lee says. "To have that on your mind and be able to concentrate on this work is incredible."

    Stanford student counselors put the high school students through their paces one night a week when they test their knowledge about science and medicine by playing uproarious versions of "Wheel of Fortune," "Hollywood Squares" and "Jeopardy!"

    Isolde Birdthistle, a senior human biology major from Cork, Ireland, will be co-director of this summer's program with Lee. She says that working with Youth Science is "the richest thing I've done at Stanford. You're with the most interesting, charismatic people. It's the quality of their minds – they are very self-motivated, and they are some of the most appreciative people I have met.

    "They're all from extraordinarily difficult backgrounds," Birdthistle adds. "We've had students who escaped from Vietnam by boat, and others who walked across the desert to escape to Ethiopia. There are some tragic stories, but they have come out on top in the end."

    Participants are recruited from primarily Northern and Central California high schools, where counselors are asked to encourage qualified students to apply – and some 300 do so. The top 100 applicants receive telephone interviews, with 40 invited to spend a day on campus with their parents or other relatives for personal interviews.

    Program coordinators have started a database to follow the 120 participants who've been involved since the program began in 1988. The majority have been contacts and those who have responded have all enrolled in four-year universities. Many are planning careers in health-related fields, and some members of the first Youth Science class are applying to medical schools.

    Youth Science also influences the lives of high school students who do not take part in the program. Participants inspire friends to consider attending college instead of stopping with a high school education.

    "Before I joined the program my friends from high school were planning to go into the military after graduation or get some ordinary job," says Jesus Rodriguez, a Stanford junior who was a Youth Science student in 1989. "After I came back and told them what I was doing, they decided to go to a community college, and some are looking at even more education," adds the native of Mexico whose home is in Madera, a small farming community in central California.

    While growing up in Madera, Rodriguez sometimes worked in the fields with his mother as well as holding other jobs. "I was my high school valedictorian, with strong grades, but I don't know anything about college," he says.

    Rodriguez began thinking of becoming a doctor while he was in high school. "When I got to Stanford, I found out more what that means," he says. "Madera is only a little farming community, and a lot of parents have to take their children out of school to work and support the family. I'm glad my mom didn't do that even though she only has a fourth or fifth grade education."

    Both Rodriguez and Hernandez want to go to medical school, and plan to apply to Stanford.

    Hernandez was relieved to find Stanford "a very encouraging environment." Doing his Youth Science stint, Hernandez was delighted when his Stanford mentor would call him, sometimes at midnight, to invite him to come to the hospital to view a procedure and observe medical personnel in action.

    One of the things that he appreciated was that "no one painted a pretty picture of what medicine is like. Our mentors and the other medical students told us how little sleep they get, how the health care system is a mess, and we heard speakers on many topics, including insurance and health maintenance organizations.

    "I applied to Stanford for college because I loved the place and the people, and Stanford medical school will be my top choice," adds Hernandez, who has volunteered in free clinics both at home and in Palo Alto.

    Rodriguez praised the program's anatomy lab as a good starting point. "The first day I was kind of sick, but the instructor did such a good job of involving me in the work that I adjusted and started to learn."

    John Dolph, a lecturer in anatomy, is a member of the Youth Science steering committee and faculty. "I give them experience," he said. "I don't just bring them in and show them. I make them work. After an hour or so, I ask them to present to the other students what they learned. It's the same routine that undergraduates and medical students get.

    "It's amazing what they can do to develop skills and organize their thoughts and express those thoughts to their peers," Dolph says. "Anatomy equates to the beginning of medicine. If they find anatomy enjoyable, they will find medicine enjoyable. None of them has ever backed out of a class."

    Winkelby says that in the beginning of the program some hospital staff members were skeptical about taking minority, low-income high school students, and putting them in highly responsible jobs. "Over the years they've not only proved themselves, but they are often called in as bilingual translators," she says. "They have spoken 10 different languages."

    Youth science was created when two Stanford undergraduates, Michael McCullogh and Mark Lawrence, suggested the program. Administrative details are coordinated through the hospital's Office of Community and Patient Relations, directed by Jeanne Kennedy who has been involved in the program since its beginning.

    The annual cost is about $60,000, or $2,725 per student. It is funded primarily through grants from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Irvine Foundation. SUH gives $10,000 a year and this year SUH Partners is also donating $10,000.

    Winkleby said she would like to see the program fully endowed. She and other faculty who participate in Youth Science do so on a volunteer basis, while the undergraduate counselors receive small stipends.

    "When this program was started," says Dolph, "it was mostly just for enrichment, mainly to expose the kids to hospital life. But that has now developed to the point where they learn study skills and other skills to go on in education."

    Why does Dolph stay with the program? "If I can reach one person and he or she takes the next step, that might be the person who will do something marvelous in medicine."