Hightower students medal at leadership conference

Several students from Hightower High School's Medical Science Academy came home with championship medals after competing in the Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) National Competitive Events at the HOSA 2012 National Leadership Conference in Orlando, Fla.

More than 7,000 students competed in Orlando in events such as medical spelling, home health aide, clinical specialty, biomedical debate, health education and forensic medicine.

Hightower HOSA students that earned gold medals were Omar Zahid, Josef Alvarez and Dhrumil Patel in the creative problem-solving competition, and Jane Zhu, Saif Merchant and Anita Vasudevan in health education. Zhu, Merchant and Vasudevan advanced from fourth place in the 2011 competition with their project on the dangers of alcohol abuse.

Jaskeerat Ghulati won a silver medal in the healthy lifestyles competition after compiling a year-long log of nutrition and physical activity to demonstrate a long-term commitment to a healthy life.

Gideon Oyekanmi, who completed a written exam, demonstrating his skills in research techniques that involved DNA synthesis, genomics and hematology, earned a bronze medal in the biotechnology portion of the event.

Other top 10 finishers at various events were Shanda McKinney (epidemiology), Riya Patel (human growth and development), Jonathan Wang, Super Patadia, Tariq Mansuri and Aakash Jacob (public health emergency preparedness).