CONWAY, Ark. (Oct. 28, 2009) – Yes, Lacey Freeman played doctor as a child.
“But it wasn’t the only thing I would do,” she said, laughing. “You know, reporters always ask me whether I played doctor.”
Freeman, a freshman, has been the subject of several newspaper and magazine articles over the past year, since she founded of Doctors of Tomorrow (DOT) last summer in her hometown of Paragould. The non-profit organization has since spread throughout the country, with chapters forming as far away as California and Pennsylvania.
“Our mission is to promote healthcare through education,” she explained. “So we basically educate the 16-22-year-old members about what it takes to become a doctor, what it takes getting into medical school, and what you actually do when you get there.”
Freeman, now 17, has wanted to work in the medical field for as long as she can remember. By kindergarten she had decided she wanted to be a doctor when she grew up, and her determination hasn’t wavered. During the summer after her sophomore year of high school she took part in a two-week, medical job shadowing program called Medical Applications of Science for Health (MASH).
“I’ve always wanted to be a doctor, but before that I wasn’t really doing a whole lot to get there,” she said. “I loved MASH, because I love medicine and it was hands on the whole time. It was kind of depressing when it ended, because I wasn’t going to get another experience with medicine until medical school. I thought that I needed another experience, and so do a lot of other pre-meds, so I decided to start Doctors of Tomorrow.”
Joined by several other MASH alumni, she spent the rest of that summer planning DOT events for the upcoming school year. Their first event, a “Jail-and-Bail” fundraiser that took place last October in Paragould, raised nearly $14,000 in six hours. The money helped fund a heart transplant for a local child, and it also garnered the organization its first media attention. Subsequent events, including one focused on helping adults stick with their health-related New Year’s resolutions, strengthened the group’s reputation.
The media coverage has helped growth of the club at the state level. In addition to the original Paragould chapter, which is affiliated with Arkansas Methodist Medical Center, a chapter quickly formed in Jonesboro. Representatives from West Memphis have shown interest, and clubs will soon be active in Little Rock and Fayetteville. The DOT bylaws require that each chapter be sponsored by a hospital or medical school, which has limited the organization’s growth.
“The biggest problem in DOT is getting the adults and the students to be on the same page,” she said. “There’s always somewhere that has a group of students that want to start a DOT club, and there’s always somewhere else that has a hospital that wants to start a DOT club, but they’re never together. And you have to have both.
“When a school that doesn’t have anything to do with medicine sponsors a program that’s supposed to focus on medicine, you don’t get nearly the same experience, because they don’t have the resources to offer you.”
Freeman is currently working with representatives of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to create a Little Rock chapter.
“UAMS is interested, so they’re my focus right now. But I would love to start a club here in Conway if the hospital here becomes interested.”
Freeman ended up in Conway almost by accident. Having already taken all the classes she needed, she decided last spring to graduate a year early from Greene County Tech High School. In a quick college search process – which took place in the few hours each week she when she wasn’t working on a DOT event or volunteering at the local hospital – she honed in on Hendrix.
“I had a really awesome teacher at Tech, Leigh Sullivan, who went to Hendrix, and she was telling me about it,” Freeman said. Sullivan, a ’78 graduate, is the chair of the history department at the high school. “She had a lot to do with the reason I decided to come here, because I really admire her professionally and personally.”
When Freeman visited the campus in late spring, she was sold – particularly by the strength of the science facilities. Now in her first semester at Hendrix, Freeman is spending lots of time in those laboratories, earning credits toward her biochemistry and microbiology major. She has also declared a second major, psychology. Although the classes are rigorous, Freeman says Doctors of Tomorrow remains a priority in her life.
“It’s kind of nice to see that I’ve been able to let other people experience medicine,” she said, “because there’s really nothing else like this.”
For more information about Doctors of Tomorrow, visit www.doctorsoftomorrow.net.
Freeman is the daughter of Jeff and Donna Freeman of Paragould.
Hendrix, founded in 1876, is a selective, residential, undergraduate liberal arts college emphasizing experiential learning in a demanding yet supportive environment. The college is featured in the 2010 edition of the Princeton Review as one of the country’s best 371 colleges, was identified as the nation’s top “Up and Coming” liberal arts college for 2010 by U.S. News and World Report, and is ranked among 44 “Best Buy” colleges by the 2010 Fiske Guide to Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit www.hendrix.edu.