Neurology Club held their second meeting of the year with guest speaker and former Bellaire student McKenna Compton. Compton spoke about her career in pathology, and on aphasia, a condition that affects speech production and comprehension.

Compton graduated from Bellaire High School in 2016, and received her bachelor’s degree from UT Austin in 2020 before pursuing a master’s at UT Dallas. Currently, she’s a pathologist at NeuroRestorative, as well as a YoungLife leader in the Houston area.

Neurology president and sophomore Julianna Shim founded Neurology Club at the beginning of this year. Shim founded the club because she wanted to help other people learn more about neurology and its related diseases.

“I started this club because my grandparents actually suffer from Alzheimer’s, dementia and Parkinson’s, and those are neurological diseases,” Shim said. “I thought it’d be interesting if I could explore that myself, and it’s actually really cool.”

While some students were there to learn about neurology, others, such as sophomore Chloe Carlson, were there to hear from Compton–someone they knew from YoungLife.

Carlson was among the 14 girls in Compton’s YoungLife chapter that showed up because of her involvement in the meeting. Carlson said she originally showed up to the meeting because of her, but now she has more reasons to come back.

“I would come again because I thought it was really interesting to learn about the different parts of the brain,” Carlson said. “I [would] want to hear another guest speaker.”

According to Shim, plans for more guest speakers are “in the works” among other activities.

“We’re gonna try to do a dissection,” Shim said, “Probably more guest speakers, and then maybe some workshops.”

Historian and sophomore Reese Bui said that getting to know more about the neurology field is “definitely” her passion. Bui said that she thinks students don’t just want to learn about neurology because they enjoy it.

“I’m really passionate about the medical field,” Bui said. “I feel like neurology is something I could explore [in] my future.”

Neurology Club’s next meeting will take place on Oct. 23, although the theme for the meeting is currently undetermined.

To learn more about Neurology Club, follow them on Instagram at @bhsneuroclub or join their Remind @bhsneuros.