Milton student attends medical conference

MILTON — Milton High School could be holding a future leader of the medical profession rights in its doors with junior Austin Hurling Jr.

Hurling, a band student and avid soccer player with a 3.125 GPA, recently represented MHS at the Future Medical Leaders of America Congress in Boston, Massachusetts. He said he was surprised to be sent the letter inviting him to the summit meeting.

"I heard I got picked from my academics, my grades and that stuff," Hurling said. "When we took tests, like PERT, we chose lists of colleges and professions we wanted and a month a two later I was notified I was chosen."

He said he decided to be a doctor based on having been in the emergency room numerous times from injuries playing soccer.

"One day I was in the hospital and I saw a mirror and I just started brainstorming crazy emergencies and I could just see myself running down the hall (to solve them,)" he said. "I thought that was pretty cool and I started researching (medical professions) and I got pretty hooked on it."

While he was at the conference, Hurling said he sat in on lectures by several award-winning doctors, including the doctor for Tom Brady, and even got to watch a couple of surgeries take place, including a knee replacement. While watching the surgery, Hurling admitted that he thought about being a surgeon but he said he has had to rethink that because he had to get used to seeing the "gore" of the procedure at first.

Overall though, Hurling said he is grateful to have gotten the chance to go to the conference and plans to attend other conferences. He is also looking into opportunities to participate in student job shadow days in hospitals where he can follow doctors on their rounds.

"It was a great opportunity to see if this is a field you really want to get into," Hurling said. "It was also a great opportunity to make friends."

MHS Band Director Gray Weaver said Hurling was a terrific student and an excellent member of the band.

"Great tuba player," Weaver said.

According to their website, Future Medical Leaders of America Congress is founded on the belief that medical professionals "must identify prospective medical talent at the earliest possible age and help these students with the necessary experience and skills acquisition to take them to the doorstep of vital careers as physicians, medical scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians."

This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Milton student attends medical conference