EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) – A simulation camp pilot program was created this year to teach young students about working in a hospital.
13 students from Altoona High School volunteered at Chippewa Valley Technical College in Eau Claire for a week long training camp to learn skills such as drawing blood, doing x-rays, and placing a breathing tube. They spent the beginning of the week learning each skill individually and then this morning took part in simulation training with a mannequin.
With an interest in one day pursuing medicine, one student says they learned an important detail about the work itself.
“I think today mostly I learned about how to deal with stressful situations, because obviously there is a lot going on, and it was hard to kind of like, stay calm, really, because there is just a lot going on at once and I really don’t know what to do for some parts. But yeah I think I learned how to deal with those situations because throughout the week I learned a lot. But you don’t really know how it’s going to be once you get into the actual situation.”, says Gracelyn Boeckmann, a soon-to-be freshman at Altoona High School.
This is the first simulation camp offered to high schoolers in the area that allows students to be involved in assessing patients. A nursing instructor at CVTC says there is hope for the future to do more camps and simulations.
“Whatever age students are at, if they can have the opportunity like this to see something in a kind of non-threatening atmosphere, and have something that is a safe place for them to see when emergencies happen or how healthcare works, that they can have that opportunity to learn and grow from that and help make their decisions and be more educated about their futures as they graduate high school.”, says Dawn Barone, a nursing instructor at CVTC.
The students involved in the simulation each went through a graduation from the program and received their own stethoscope and 250-dollar scholarship.
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Medical simulation camp teaches young students
