Princeton High School juniors Viktorija Bostogaite and Christina Garvis model their new lab coats during their TAP MD program event Monday at UC Medical Center.(Photo: The Enquirer/Anne Saker)Buy Photo

CORRYVILLE - Deep in the sprawling University of Cincinnati Medical Center lies a windowless room that contains half a century of history the surgical amphitheater, wherethe past and present of medicine connect with the future.

So as Greater Cincinnati endured Monday mornings pea-soup fog, about 50 area high schools students, some with giddy parents, walked with reverence into the amphitheater, gazing at the high ceiling and the oil portraits that capture the stern faces of noted Cincinnati surgeons.

The big moment to come: an operation to remove a kidney from a living donor.

She was excited, but I could barely sleep last night, said Erika Gallagher of Sharonville, who took a day off from work to bring her daughter, Princeton High School junior Viktorija Bostogaite.

This month, 47 students from around the region came together for the yearlong TapMD program, run by the nonprofit the Health Collaborative with the hope of"tapping" or enticing at least half of each class to follow the path into the healing sciences. Mondays visit to the surgical amphitheater was the first big field trip for the TapMD class, and not only were there bagels and juice, but each student received a white coat with the first name embroidered over the left pocket.

I have been thinking about medicine, and when I heard about this program and how it can expose you to a medical education, it sounded awesome, said Princeton junior Christina Garvis.

Im exploring right now, so Im glad to have this chance, said Preetham Kastury, a junior at Mason High School.

Arepresentative from Ethicon, the Blue Ash-based Johnson & Johnson division that manufactures surgical equipment, displayed on a table some of the tools that would be used in Mondays procedure.

A brass drain fitting on the tiled floor served as a reminder that 50 years ago, when UC Heaths kidney transplant program began, many surgeries of all kinds took place in the surgical amphitheater, where students and doctors took the steeply raked seats to watch and learn.

Mondays procedure actually took place in an operating room several floors away, with the surgeon at the table using a camera to assist the effort.

In the amphitheater, viewers watched a screen as the surgeon at the table threaded a camera into the patients body. For long stretches, the hissing of a fan was only sound in the amphitheater. The magnification enhanced the doctors every snip fat and tissue with a heated knife. In two hours, the kidney was free, and on its way to its recipient.

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