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PITTSBURG —
Healthcare industry experts are projecting a increasing need for healthcare workers in coming years. On Wednesday, 35 area high school students who are interested in pursuing a healthcare career got the chance to see some of what it takes to get there.
The students, who were from Frontenac, Girard, Northeast, Covenant Harvest and Pittsburg High Schools, participated in the inaugural Camp Med, a day-long workshop focused on careers in health care. Each of them, Warren said, have expressed interest in healthcare careers and were nominated for the camp by their teachers.
At the workshop the students visited with local surgeons, pharmacists, physicians and nurses during sessions on pharmaceutical compounding, sports injury management, physical assessment, maintaining an airway and casting and splinting. They also participated in a mock code blue, the term hospitals use for cardiac arrest, or heart attack.
The workshop was sponsored by the Pittsburg State University Department of Nursing and the University of Kansas Medical Center Area Health Education Center. By having professionals meet directly with students and explain exactly what it is they do and what is required to get there, students can gain a greater appreciation for the work that lies ahead of them, said Ruthellyn Hinton, a professor emeritus in the College of Nursing who joined the program when it was founded 38 years ago. Hinton said it is important for students to be able to put a face with the name, so to speak.
“It’s important to connect the real world with what they’re doing in the classroom,” Hinton said.
Mary Beth Warren, executive director of AHEC, said the workshop has been in development for some time.
“We’ve been looking for an opportunity to do a more hands-on event,” Warren said. “It really got going in the last two months. It gives the kids an opportunity to experience the skills healthcare providers have to have.”
Warren said the camp was purposely-designed to be small.
“We limited the size of the camp so there would be more opportunities to take part in hands-on activities,” Warren said.
In one of the sessions, pharmacist Brian Sullivan showed students how to use a mortar and pestle — the iconic pharmacological bowl and grinder used to mash compounds together — to mix menthol, camphor and zinc oxide into a rough equivalent of Vick’s Vaporub. But pharmacology is about much more than mixing ingredients in a bowl, Sullivan said.
Healthcare industry experts are projecting a increasing need for healthcare workers in coming years. On Wednesday, 35 area high school students who are interested in pursuing a healthcare career got the chance to see some of what it takes to get there.
The students, who were from Frontenac, Girard, Northeast, Covenant Harvest and Pittsburg High Schools, participated in the inaugural Camp Med, a day-long workshop focused on careers in health care. Each of them, Warren said, have expressed interest in healthcare careers and were nominated for the camp by their teachers.
At the workshop the students visited with local surgeons, pharmacists, physicians and nurses during sessions on pharmaceutical compounding, sports injury management, physical assessment, maintaining an airway and casting and splinting. They also participated in a mock code blue, the term hospitals use for cardiac arrest, or heart attack.
The workshop was sponsored by the Pittsburg State University Department of Nursing and the University of Kansas Medical Center Area Health Education Center. By having professionals meet directly with students and explain exactly what it is they do and what is required to get there, students can gain a greater appreciation for the work that lies ahead of them, said Ruthellyn Hinton, a professor emeritus in the College of Nursing who joined the program when it was founded 38 years ago. Hinton said it is important for students to be able to put a face with the name, so to speak.
“It’s important to connect the real world with what they’re doing in the classroom,” Hinton said.
Mary Beth Warren, executive director of AHEC, said the workshop has been in development for some time.
“We’ve been looking for an opportunity to do a more hands-on event,” Warren said. “It really got going in the last two months. It gives the kids an opportunity to experience the skills healthcare providers have to have.”
Warren said the camp was purposely-designed to be small.
“We limited the size of the camp so there would be more opportunities to take part in hands-on activities,” Warren said.
In one of the sessions, pharmacist Brian Sullivan showed students how to use a mortar and pestle — the iconic pharmacological bowl and grinder used to mash compounds together — to mix menthol, camphor and zinc oxide into a rough equivalent of Vick’s Vaporub. But pharmacology is about much more than mixing ingredients in a bowl, Sullivan said.
“A pharmacy degree opens many, many doors for you in a lot of different directions,” Sullivan said.
In another session Rashid Weekley, director of Via Christi’s respiratory department, described an unsavory story from a previous post in Wichita as he showed students how to intubate a patient with a blocked or closed airway. During a procured one day, Weekley said, he tried to warn the attending doctor that the intubating tube had gone into the patients esophagus — toward the stomach — rather than into the trachea, toward the lungs. When the doctor pulled the tube out, vomit spewed all over Weekley’s scrubs and beard, he said.
“I said, Doc, you owe me a pair scrubs,” Weekley laughed.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Danny Reveal demonstrated how splints and casts are applied to sprained and broken limbs, and showed how crutches are properly used. Some of the students were more curious than others, Reveal said after a session as he wistfully recalled the days he spent in medical school and residency. That’s not to say they didn’t care, though.
“When you’re away from it for so long you don’t realize how green these kids are,” he laughed. “Some of the kids don’t have questions because they just don’t know what to ask.”
But that’s exactly what Camp Med is designed for, said Mary Carol Pomatto, chair of the College of Nursing.
“Whenever you have young people engaged in exploring a health career, that’s a positive endeavor,” Pomatto said. “There is lots of expertise being shared in a personal environment. That’s very important to those who are participating, and so far it has looked like they’re very engaged in the material they’re learning.”
