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by Andy Evangelista
1st appeared 15 July 1998
This Beats
Flipping Burgers
One works on flies
and another files work. They make the minimum wage of
$5.75 per hour, but it beats bagging burgers, which
is how many youngsters are introduced to the world of
timecards and tax withholding. And speaking of
punching a clock, it's even better than sleeping
until Jerry Springer comes on, which may offer a teen
a few laughs but no cash.
Some 50 high
school students are spending their summer at UCSF --
at least 20 hours a week worth -- in offices, labs,
storerooms or other campus digs. They're part of the
Summer Youth Program, which gives San Francisco high
school students a chance to earn money and get behind
the scenes at some of the major institutions in the
city.
 Ya-Hui Lin, a 17-year-old senior-to-be
at George Washington High, spends four hours each
afternoon in a ninth-floor HSW biochemistry
laboratory, where she helps create mutant fruit
flies. For the Eye, she showed how she takes a test
tube-full of the tiny creatures, knocks them out
temporarily with a blast of nitrous oxide and
separates them for breeding into more tubes at the
ratio of five females for one male. At a separate
station, others in the laboratory of geneticist
Patrick O'Farrell pick out mutant flies for studies
aimed at identifying genes and pathways that may play
a role in conditions ranging from cancer and heart
disease to mental disorders. In her first four weeks,
Lin has handled thousands of the tiny flies, but the
lab is so fascinating to her that the time in the
afternoon seems to, well, fly. "It's like it's
not work," said Lin, who also finds the tiny
flies to be "very cute." Her
summer-employed friends are either bussing at
restaurants or working at movie theaters, and they
seem to be too tired or too bored, she says.
Lin's supervisor
and mentor is Nikita Yakubovich, a staff research
associate who responded to a flier that offered high
school students to work in campus departments. In
addition to getting good help at no cost to the
department, Yakubovich wanted to introduce a
youngster to the UCSF world of science. "It's a
lot of work and the person had to be
responsible," he said. Lin has fit the bill
perfectly, plus she's getting an introductory course
in genetics to boot. Lin isn't considering a career
in science just yet. Right now, she's interested in a
future that includes world travel. Little does she
know that the top scientists are frequent flyers.
 At the Human Resources Office at Laguna
Honda School, 16-year-old Willie Trail is enjoying
his second stint of summer clerical work at UCSF.
Last year, he worked in the payroll department at
Mission Center. When Trail, who hopes to one day be a
chef, looked at many non-UCSF employment options, he
could not find anything appetizing to his job tastes,
and he opted for more UCSF office work. "The
people last year and this year are really cool,"
he said. Plus, no one yells at you for forgetting the
order of fries.
This summer, he's
doing a lot of filing of time sheets and personnel
forms. Although he's been a two-time UCSF employee,
Trail has never set foot on the main Parnassus
campus. "I know there's a big hospital
there." From his handling of hundreds of forms
this year and last, he guesses that there are a
"heck'a lot of people" working at this
campus. Five thousand, he guesses. More like 15,000,
the Eye tells him, and he raises his eyes and nods
with approval. Trail likes being among them.
Linda Hall, who
coordinates the Summer Youth Program for UCSF Human
Resources, worries, however, that other kids won't
get the opportunities that Lin and Trail now enjoy.
It seems the 30-year-old program, which is partially
funded by federal monies, is threatened again by
legislation that could wipe it out. "Hopefully,
it will survive," she said.
Skinema
UCSF physician
Vail Reese, whose Dermatology in the Cinema website
has received the "thumbs up" from no less
than Gene Siskel, is readying for another round of
movie-related fame. Later this month, he's scheduled
to fly to Dallas to be a guest on Joe Bob Briggs'
Saturday night TV show which airs on TNT cable.
Briggs is a satirist, columnist and critic, known for
his off-beat movie reviews. The show will likely air
by the end of summer, says Reese, whose site (http://www.skinema.com/) -- designed to enlighten people about
common and rare skin conditions and what
dermatologists do -- has been reviewed by such worthy
publications as USA Today, People, Us Magazine, and Daybreak.
The newest feature
of the site -- which includes such dermatologic
details as Marilyn Monroe's mole, Bill Murray's acne,
and a discussion on whether Michael Jackson actually
has vitiligo -- is the "Skinematic
Spotlight" on the X-Files ("a dermatologist's view of the TV
phenomenon"). It's
the first time movie buff Reese has strayed from film
to TV. But with the new X-Files movie out there, the
pictures are timely.
By the way, Vail
Reese's middle initial is "C," which makes
him Dr. VCR.
Attack of the Giant Lizard?
Check out the
model (at least as of this week) of the Parnassus
campus, which sits in a glass case in the Medical
Sciences building lobby. If this is indeed our
current or future look, Godzilla, or a creature that
looks a lot like him, is lurking from the top of the
Medical Sciences Building ready to pounce on the next
group of Parnassus jaywalkers.
Kudos from the Eye
to the wise guy who put the likeness (but perhaps not
to scale) of the amphibious ornament on the top of
the campus.
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