The 2008 Carroll High School graduate is in his second year of medical school at the University of Toledo, where he volunteers as a tutor at the Academic Enrichment Center.
Last summer the center’s supervisor was looking for a tutor to make some videos to supplement the first year curriculum’s classroom instruction. Luckoski volunteered.
“I never had actually done any sort of recording in the past, so it’s been quite the adventure learning the ropes,” said the son of Marty and Ann Luckoski of Sugarcreek Twp.
While working on those tutorial videos, Luckoski, who grew up in Beavercreek, learned of a video contest sponsored by the Khan Academy, a nonprofit organization that offers free educational videos.
The contest was part of an initiative to provide free, online resources for students preparing for the revised Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) that will be administered in 2015.
“The contest was so closely related to what I had done previously, and what I was continuing with this summer, that it just seemed natural to give it a shot,” said Luckoski.
He ended up as a winner in not only the Khan Academy video contest but also in a separate, but related, writing contest.
Along with the other winners of the video contest, Luckoski was invited to California for a week to learn from Khan Academy trainers and help them produce a new collection of tutorials.
“Currently there’s no centralized free resource for pre-medical students studying for the MCAT. It’s great to be involved in a project that makes the resources available to everyone,” he said.
The tutoring and video making experiences have led Luckoski to add another component to his plans for his medical career.
“I love teaching and engaging with people to help them learn. I am very sure I want to practice medicine out of a university-affiliated hospital once I complete medical school,” he said, explaining that as both an educator and a physician he would be able to impact many more lives.
Not only would he be helping his own patients but he would also “contribute in helping every patient my students help. It exponentially increases how much I can help others.”
Luckoski’s current plan is to become a trauma surgeon, in part because he is “drawn to intensity.”
While working on his undergraduate degree at Miami University, he worked at a crisis center as a suicide hotline operator.
“Some nights I would leave and be drained more than I ever had been before, emotionally and even physically, but I’ve never felt more fulfilled either.”
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