MORGANTOWN – Alex, an outwardly genial 66-year-old, was reclining on an exam table one morning, politely trying to answer every medical query tossed his way.
“What brings you in today, Alex?” a person in scrubs asked. “We heard you might be feeling a little bit confused or disoriented, maybe?”
“My wife and daughter said I was talking out of sorts,” Alex began.
He even tried to joke a little.
“They said I wasn’t making any sense – but they say I’m like that half the time, anyway.”
Attempted levity aside, this was turning out to be serious.
Was it a stroke? Or a brain tumor? Did Alex have Alzheimer’s or the first stages of dementia?
The workup told it.
Alex is actually ALEX, an Artificial Intelligence-infused medical mannequin who can present with a variety of personas and medical maladies.
He’s the star of MedEd, the partnership between Monongalia County Schools and West Virginia University Medicine geared to get high-schoolers thinking early about careers in health care.
The person doing that all-important assessment was still in her junior year in high school.
MedEd and Mon Schools were both recognized last month by the Education Alliance, a statewide nonprofit that advocates for student opportunities through business and community collaborations such as the above.
Both were nominated for the alliance’s “Hope for the Future: School-Business Partnerships of the Year” award, which carries a total prize package of $25,000.
The alliance is linking up with Hope Gas for the recognition – and the Mon Schools-WVU Medicine partnership is one of eight nominated across West Virginia, with the grand prize winner to be announced later this spring.
Robert Hull, the executive director of the Education Alliance, said an independent panel made the nominations and that MedEd-Mon Schools collaboration stood out, both for its clinical mix and hometown motivation.
“It gets students prepared for high-skilled jobs,” he said, “so we can keep them in West Virginia.”
For Kendall Miller, a Mon student enrolled in the program, the prognosis is good.
She’s already had a full range of experience in hospital settings that “changed everything” for her, she told Mon Board of Education members at a recent meeting.
“Without this program, I honestly don’t know where I’d be in high school right now,” she said.
