North Bergen High School seniors Jeckin Shah and Gopat Patel have also been good friends for a long time. Sharing a keen interest in science, the two excellent students were selected by a school committee to participate in a special medical research project at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York.
For the last six years, Dr. Louis Bigliani, a North Bergen native who is the chairman of the department for orthopedics at the hospital, introduced the research project to North Bergen High School students through his long-time friend Ira Wolfe, who is a health and physical education teacher at the school.
The program is called “Grand Roads,” part of the hospital’s project to introduce academically talented students to the world of medical research. North Bergen has been sending its two best science students to the program for the last six years and the results have been outstanding.
Recently, the selected students have been assigned to the orthopedic-biomechanics laboratory of Dr. Van C. Mow, who introduces the students to a certain form of research and enables them to explore horizons that are not possible for the average high school student.
For example, Shah and Patel have spent the better part of the last 18 months working on research to build the first artificial shoulder. They were enrolled in the Grand Roads program in August of 1999.
It was right up the alley of both students, because Patel hopes to pursue a career in medicine, while Shah is hoping to become a biomedical engineer.
“It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, especially for a high school student,” Patel said. “You don’t dream of getting a chance like this.”
“But the people there didn’t make us feel like we were high school students,” Shah said. “It’s like we became part of their research family.”
Each student was given a special part of the shoulder to research. Shah was asked to research the glenoid and humeral head of the shoulder, sort of the ball and socket of the shoulder. Patel concentrated on the supraspinatus tendon (or in sports terminology, it’s known as the rotator cuff) and the strain that is caused on that tendon through wear and tear.
The students spent countless hours, making the journey to upper Manhattan to the hospital’s research laboratory. “I kept a log just in case someone wanted to know how many hours we put into it,” Patel said. “I would say that we spent 10-15 hours a week during the school year and about 25 to 30 hours during the summer. But because we’re such good friends and we were able to hang out together and do things together, it wasn’t that bad. It did get a little crazy, trying to get there and back sometimes.”
But the research was what the students really loved doing, learning all about the making of the human shoulder, all with the intent of helping to construct the perfect prosthetic shoulder.
Joined by doctoral students
Shah and Patel were joined by a host of people working in the lab, such as medical students, doctorate students, as well as professional researchers.
“There was a whole range of research to do, information to collect,” Patel said. “It took a lot of time and effort, so you needed to be patient and understanding.”
The process might have been exhausting, but it has already been put to good use. The two students entered their research as part of the recent Hudson County Science Fair, and both came away receiving one of the 13 gold medals presented, among the approximately 600 projects judged last weekend at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City.
The judges were quite impressed with how well Patel and Shah knew their subjects, but after all, they’ve been essentially working on the project for more than a year.
“They were amazed with how involved the research became,” Shah said. “When they asked how long it took, I said, ‘Way over 100 hours.’ It wasn’t the typical science fair project.”
Patel’s project, entitled, “The Human Shoulder: A Strain Analysis,” focused on arthritis and used the example of the strain a tennis player puts on his shoulder.
Shah’s project was entitled, “Biomechanics and Contact Area After Shoulder Arthoplasty,” and focused on what elevations of the shoulder caused more strain, using out of range and out of place motions.
Ironically, Shah is the one who wants to go to medical school and his project focused in biomechanics, while Patel, the future engineer, focused more on the medical aspect.
“It just turned out that way,” Patel said. “We didn’t plan it at all.”
Both students said that their experience doing the research was far more important than participating in a science fair.
“But winning the gold medal has been a plus for both of us,” Patel said. “But we got so many things out of doing the research before the Science Fair.”
Both students also entered their projects in national competitions as well. They were submitted to the Sieman’s/Westinghouse Science and Technology Competition, where they both earned honorable mention honors. They are awaiting word from the Intel Talent Search.
“The Hudson County Science Fair has evolved into a high tech competition,” Wolfe said. “It’s very competitive. It’s like the Super Bowl for these 600 kids. It’s pretty remarkable we’ve been able to get two gold medallists out of that group. We’re very proud. They’re the best that this school has to offer and they’ve proved it.”
Richard Gilbarty, the school’s science chairman, agreed.
“All of the projects were quality projects, but these two stood out,” Gilbarty said. “When we sent these two students to Columbia Presbyterian, it helped to motivate our other students who wanted to participate in the program. Now, they’ve set the standard for others and we’re very proud.”
Shah has already been accepted into the programs at Carnegie Mellon, the University of Pennsylvania and Lehigh. Patel has been accepted at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Rochester, N.Y. and is awaiting word on other pre-med programs.
Needless to say, the students definitely have bright futures ahead of them.
“They told us that they were going to continue our research,” Patel said. “That means so much to me, that what we were able to accomplish had a purpose.”