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AROUND THE QUADSSteamboat Scholar Internship Benefits Students, EmployersBy Shira Boss-Bicak ’93
David Altchek ’78, a renowned orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery, doesn’t usually work with medical students, let alone undergraduates. But when a new organization, The Steamboat Foundation, started a summer internship program designed to give promising college students valuable exposure to their fields of interest, and pay them well to do it, Altchek signed up to be a mentor. As the program allows, he specified that he wanted to work with a Columbia College student. “Medicine is all about apprenticeship, at many levels, and it’s difficult in college to find out about a career in medicine if you haven’t had some hands-on experience,” Altchek says. Last summer, Altchek worked with his first Steamboat Scholar, pre-med student Dean Arnaoutakis ’05, who for 10 weeks assisted Altchek with clinical research projects, trailed him during patient consultations and observed him at work in the operating room. Altchek is a top sports medicine specialist, and Arnaoutakis met some star athletes along the way.
“The majority of pre-med students are sitting in labs or volunteering in a hospital, where they’re definitely not going to get as much exposure,” Arnaoutakis says. In addition to working, the interns — who last summer were all in New York, although this year the program is expanding to other cities — go through an orientation program together and attend regular dinner events, some with special guests. Last year, a psychologist met with the group every other week to discuss leadership issues such as assertiveness and risk-taking. Those who run the program “were very interested in our fears and concerns about entering the work field,” Arnaoutakis says. “They wanted us to not be intimidated about working with [for instance] a world-renowned surgeon.” The Steamboat Foundation was started by two managing partners of an investment firm in Greenwich, Conn., and is named after the road where that company, Blue Orchid Capital, is located. Andy Walter (grandson of Hank Walter ’31) and Peer Pederson, the partners, wanted to create opportunities for meaningful internship experiences. “As students go into their final year of school, it is a critical time in their lives,” Walter says. “We’re looking for [employers] who are going to take time to mentor the students and avoid the typical summer job where someone ends up counting paperclips because there’s nothing substantive to do.” The foundation selects prominent employer-mentors, such as Altchek, works with them to design the internships and works with colleges to select students who are then interviewed and chosen by the employers. The mentor selects the school he or she wishes to work with, and then selects a student to be a summer intern. Scholars must be receiving or eligible for financial aid, and they are paid $12,000 by the foundation for the internship, which can be in any of eight fields — business, medicine, law, journalism, public service, science, sports and arts/entertainment. In some cases, the financial support provided by the foundation allows the employers to bring in students when they couldn’t otherwise. As Altchek says of his department at the hospital, “We don’t have money to give, so we wouldn’t be able to hire an undergraduate to spend the summer with us.” Altchek is continuing as a sponsor and this summer will be working with Cynthia Gao ’06E, a biomedical engineering major.
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