Cool Kid Stephanie Salome hopes to relieve pain

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Our ABC7 Cool Kid for Thursday, April 2, is Stephanie Salome, who is helping people she may never meet deal with their physical pain.

Salome is a senior at Bravo Medical Magnet High School in Los Angeles, where she is in a program studying pain relief and pain management. When class is finished, she volunteers her own time to do more.

"I dedicate my time after school to go ahead and stay here and continue on with stuff that needs to be done, because we do have deadlines," Salome said.

This 18-year-old knows there is lots of work ahead, but she is hopeful of positive results.

"Along the road, we'll probably find different treatments for it. It's not something that we have found yet, but we know ways to relieve the pain that they're going through so it doesn't affect their lives as much," Salome said.

Not all students can get into the program, but Salome has the qualities they seek.

"We look for that passion and dedication, the maturity, the responsibility, and she had all of those characteristics," science teacher Glendy Ramirez-De La Cruz said.

Salome loves the idea that someone, somewhere, sometime will benefit from the work she is doing now.

"They're not going to know who I am, but it will make me happy, it'll make me feel like I did something good in the world," Salome said.