6 ABC: Local medical student makes a play with the NFL


Jul 25, 2024

As training camp gets underway, the NFL has announced a new roster of medical students participating in the league’s Diversity in Sports Medicine initiative. Joel Sacris is one of the few selected to do a medical rotation with the league. And while it’s not for the hometown team, the 4th year Sidney Kimmel Medical College student says this is a dream.

“I’ve had a physician tell me once that within the field of medicine there’s an overrepresentation of Filipino nurses, but an underrepresentation of Filipino physicians,” said Joel. And that stuck with Joel Sacris, the fourth year medical student at Sidney Kimmel Medical College, says he was inspired by his mom, a nurse, to take it a step further, he was recently selected as part of the NFL’s Diversity in Sports Medicine Pipeline Initiative, a 2022 initiative to get underrepresented medical students into the sports medicine field.

Watch the full story at 6 ABC here.