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Doctors of tomorrow

By Jessica Gil, age 17 | October 27, 2021

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THANK YOU Jessica Gil (middle), a senior at Bellaire High School, and her brother, Alejandro Gil (right), donated toys to Texas Children’s Hospital (representative at left). Jessica was admitted to Texas Children’s as a baby when she had pneumonia. Years later, her experience at TCH inspired her to start her podcast and learn about the medical profession.

Everything had gone virtual when Covid-19 struck, including internships and school. While I was stuck at home, I had the idea of building a youth-oriented medical resource. I created an Instagram account for my organization (@doctorsoftomorrow56) and contacted a friend who is a medical student. I asked whether she would be interested in being interviewed, and she was so excited to participate.

I gathered all the equipment and created my first-ever podcast alongside my older brother, Alejandro, who is in college. As we interviewed more doctors and medical students, we noticed that we were gaining more followers. We watched as the number of countries with listeners increased as we put out more content.

Not only do we have a podcast, but we also make important and engaging Instagram posts on things like what the Delta variant is, comparing and contrasting medical shows with real life, and what adolescents can do to prepare for a career in medicine.

We then decided to do a bake sale, which netted us $300. The funds were for toys that we donated to children at the Texas Children's Hospital who have cancer. We did this as a means of saying thank you to Texas Children's Hospital. I had pneumonia when I was six months old, and Texas Children’s did such a fantastic job of caring for me while I was on the verge of death.

We've had DMs from fellow teens saying things like, "I'm so grateful this podcast and organization exist because I've learned so much about what it's like to be a doctor that I couldn't learn anywhere else."

We always love interacting with our guest speakers and learning about their journeys to becoming doctors.

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