![\"dr-mary-mason-medical-student-washington-university\"](\"https:\/\/littlemedicalschool.com\/co-southdenver\/files\/2026\/04\/dr-mary-mason-medical-student-washington-university.jpg\" "\\"dr-mary-mason-medical-student-washington-university\\"")
\nThis is the story of Little Medical School by our founder Dr. Mary Mason, MD, MBA<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n
Here, Genie and Mary are at Washington University, and Mary is a a 4th year medical student.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t Dr. Mary Mason, MD, MBA started franchising Little Medical School<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t A Little Medical School student learning about being a pediatrician<\/p>\n My mother was one of four women in her medical school class in 1954. She loved being a physician and did everything she could to get me, my siblings, our cousins, and friends to pursue a career in medicine. As a 6-year-old, I couldn’t wait for her to get home from her office. She would bring me tongue depressors, gauze pads, and bandages for my “doctor’s office” in our playroom. I had a little white coat, a stethoscope, and an old-fashion black doctor’s bag… and I felt like a real doctor. At Thanksgiving, we would “suture” the stuffed turkey. As I got older, I learned how to give an injection to an orange. I had no doubt in my mind that medicine was an achievable career path for me, even when adults thoughtlessly reminded me how many years I would have to go to school or how hard it would be.<\/p>\n It was only later, as a first-year medical student, did I realize how powerful those early experiences were in shaping my conviction to pursue a career in medicine.<\/p>\n In 1998, I was a chief resident in Internal Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, and I decided to recreate my childhood experiences and wrote the first Little Medical School. I recruited fellow residents and medical students to help me teach. Our very first class attended by 13-year-olds surprised me. They were acting silly and were not embracing the experience as I had hoped. I went home and gathered up a basketful of white coats and stethoscopes and brought them to the second class and made the students put them on.<\/p>\n Dressed in a white coats with a stethoscope around their neck, the students were engaged, attentive, and having so much fun, that they didn’t realize how much they were learning. That was the “Ah-HA” moment. The power of role-playing has been a key pillar of all Little Medical School programs.<\/p>\n In addition to inspiring kids and teens to see themselves in healthcare careers, we teach real-life skills. Kids learn what to do in there is a medical emergency, how to use a first aid kit, and how to prevent hypothermia. We also stress the importance of a health care professional being a role model. That means taking care of yourself, eating right, exercising, getting your immunizations and flu shot, and not smoking.<\/p>\n We are dedicated and believe in our mission of inspiring and shaping tomorrow’s healthcare professionals today through our numerous after-school programs, summer camps, birthday parties, special programs, and our award-winning line of educational toys. My greatest hope is that future medical, nursing, veterinarian, and pharmacy school classes<\/a> will be filled with Little Medical School graduates!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Inspiring health awareness through education for kids and teens This is the story of Little Medical School by our founder Dr. Mary Mason, MD, MBA 1996 Here, Genie and Mary…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":5580,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"content-type":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3844","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/littlemedicalschool.com\/co-southdenver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/littlemedicalschool.com\/co-southdenver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/littlemedicalschool.com\/co-southdenver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/littlemedicalschool.com\/co-southdenver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/littlemedicalschool.com\/co-southdenver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/littlemedicalschool.com\/co-southdenver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/littlemedicalschool.com\/co-southdenver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/littlemedicalschool.com\/co-southdenver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"dr-mary-mason-600x724\"](\"https:\/\/littlemedicalschool.com\/co-southdenver\/files\/2026\/04\/dr-mary-mason-600x724-1.jpg\" "\\"dr-mary-mason-600x724\\"")
\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n\t\t2015\n\t<\/h2>\n\t
![\"A-kid-learning-about-medicine-and-STEAM-at-a-Little-Medical-School-program-600x686\"](\"https:\/\/littlemedicalschool.com\/co-southdenver\/files\/2026\/04\/A-kid-learning-about-medicine-and-STEAM-at-a-Little-Medical-School-program-600x686-1.jpg\" "\\"A-kid-learning-about-medicine-and-STEAM-at-a-Little-Medical-School-program-600x686\\"")
\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n\t\t2018\n\t<\/h2>\n\t
\n\t\t“I am a doctor’s kid”\n\t<\/h2>\n\t