Adventures in healthcare: Camp introduces students to medical careers

Payton Smith winces as Logan Carroll makes the first incision in the sheep heart during the TSC Healthcare Camp on Saturday. Students learned about how blood flows through the chambers of the heart.(Jill Bock/Standard Democrat)

NEW MADRID, Mo. - It quickly went from “I can’t look” to “Look at that” as participants in the TSC Healthcare Camp dissected the sheep heart in front of them.

Dissecting a heart was just one of the activities for the nearly two dozen participants in Saturday’s camp designed to introduce participants to healthcare and science. The participants from sixth through 12th grades also learned first aid, CPR, phlebotomy, how to give an injection and took part in an ambulance simulation.

Caitie Cox, a member of SkillsUSA and one of the program’s organizers, explained the goal was to provide a fun way to learn about healthcare.

Annasten Halford, right, keeps a close eye on the needle as Caitie Cox demonstrates how to properly fill the syringe then give an injection. (Jill Bock/Standard Democrat)

“We are doing this because we want to teach basic health skills but we also want to encourage them to go into healthcare fields,” Cox said.

While she was participating in several of the activities, Cox was also leading breakout groups during the half-day camp. She along with Callie and Maddie Horne demonstrated how to draw blood and properly give a patient an injection.

“This is the first time for me teaching at one of these,” she said. “I was a student myself in one of these when I was a lot younger so this is different but I’m enjoying it so far.”

Lilli Tanner carefully manuevers the surgical threads as she practices her suture skills durin the Healthcare Camp. (Jill Bock/Standard Democrat)

She wasn’t the only one.

Emma Howard, a freshman at New Madrid County Central High School, said she would like to be a surgeon or a labor and delivery nurse someday. She said she particularly liked dissecting the heart.

Eighth grader Timothy Bobe came to the camp to learn more about his stepfather’s career as an EMT. While he liked the activities, he was slightly less enthusiastic about dissecting a sheep heart, calling it “interesting.”

Gloria Houston, SkillsUSA sponsor at the New Madrid County R-1 Technical Skills Center, explained the students put the camp together to partner with business and industry in the healthcare field. In addition to SkillsUSA, the Southeastern Missouri Area Health Education Center sponsored the camp and two third year medical students from the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University - Jonesboro assisted in teaching camp participants.

According to Houston, while doing research her students learned of the high number of young people in foster care in Southeast Missouri. The students decided to create programs that might show those in foster care and others the variety of careers open in healthcare and the programs already available to students in the school district.

This spring SkillsUSA members will present programs to middle school and elementary school students on first aid, CPR, choking and other topics.

Houston sees the programs as about empowerment: “Each little program we do is to try to reach somebody - at least one student in the group so that they now can say, ‘I can do this.’”