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Treating burn victims, newborn and maternity nursing, emergency room action, and rehab care are only a few scenarios county high school students got to experience at the medical demonstration titled “Scrubs” on Tuesday and Wednesday.at Collin County Community College’s Central Park Campus in McKinney.
The program was put on by the college’s health sciences and emergency services division, and was aimed at high school students interested in the field of medicine.
“Our aim was to get the students interested in the field,” said Merry McBryde-Foster, Collin College dean of health sciences and emergency services. “For those that are interested, get them curious and past the point of wanting to know how much plastic surgeons make and get them to start asking the questions they should be asking.”
The program was aimed at showing the students different aspects of the medical field and how they worked together. Students were able to treat burn victims in an ER situation after witnessing the burning building and watching firefighters and paramedics rescuing them. They were also able to gain a better understanding of work in a maternity ward. The students stepped into the shoes of patients and learned about the difficulties of rehab work, experiencing some simulated setbacks similar to those requiring rehab.
The students being exposed to the medical environments for the first time felt it was a humbling experience and that it really helped them to clarify their goals and gain some good experience.
“Scrubs has been very interesting, I’ve learned that all nurses aren’t quote unquote what you always think of with the little hat and candy stripes, but there are many opportunities in the nursing field and a lot of ways to help people,” said Frisco Wakeland student Malcolm Todd.
For Stephanie Trevino, a Frisco Centennial student, the rehab experience seeing what it is like for patients was a new experience.
“It really helps me, being able to see and now feel what the patients go through, was quite the experience,” Trevino said.
All of the surgeons and doctors of the program were nursing students at the college. This was the first year that the program has run and many of the nursing students felt it would be a tremendous help in guiding the students to whatever their goals may be.
For nursing student Lindsey Bearden, this program would have helped guide her had she had this unique opportunity when she was in high school. She said she wished something like this program had come along to help her focus, as much as many of the 77 students in attendance did.
“It would have helped me to have a program like this influence me in high school,” Bearden said. “I could have discovered what was out there, a lot of people picture the stereotypical nurse in a hospital, but this program shows that [the nursing field] is a lot more opportunistic than that.”
