Students learn about medical careers through Explorer Post

Mareesa Branigan thinks she might want to become a pediatrician. But until the time comes when she has to apply for medical school, the Jackson Junior High student is learning more about a variety of health-care careers through an Explorer Post at Southeast Missouri Hospital.

On Tuesday, about 20 students watched a mock code-blue alert as doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists tried to revive a patient whose heart had stopped beating.

While Mark Smith did compressions on the patient's chest, Kent Honey tried to find a pulse and watched the EKG monitor. Dr. Adam Swafford rushed up from the emergency room to administer medication and check the patient's status.

The code team revived its patient after a few minutes before rushing him off to the Intensive Care Unit. But this patient had one distinction that most do not. The EKG monitors were programmed by computer, there wasn't any heart to shock and no veins to shoot medication through. This patient was really a training dummy.

Though the trauma wasn't real, it is effective in teaching students about a variety of health-care careers from nursing to respiratory therapy, which is the goal of an Explorer Post.

And activities do a better job of showing students what kind of skills are needed in different health-care fields, said advisers Dana Roberts and Emily Shanks.

Hands-on activities tend to keep the group more interested than lectures. And the students tend to drive the program topics to those they are most interested in.

The hospital has had an Explorer Post for years as a way of introducing students to the differences in health-care professions. The post was inactive for some time and began again in 2002. It is open to anyone ages 14 to 20 who has expressed an interest in a career in health care.

Meetings are held twice each month on a variety of programs or activities, like a tour of the hospital, a visit to the wound center's hyperbaric chamber or a pizza party. Each meeting lasts about 60 or 75 minutes and often includes hands-on learning.

That's what keeps some students motivated to keep coming. Branigan said she learned about the post from a friend and likes the different kinds of programs.

Erica Neighbors has been part of the post for two years and has seen everything from pig hearts to mock surgeries during the meetings. She likes being able to see so many different things.

"Anything that can help me make up my mind," said the high school senior. "The more I see stuff, I don't know what I want to do with my life."

She tried her hand at intubating a patient after the mock code blue on the cardiothoracic unit, where heart patients are treated.

"It's complicated," she said after attempting to insert the breathing tube. Her tube ended up in the esophagus not the lungs.

What students see on "ER" isn't anything close to what really happens in the hospital, said Mark Smith, nurse manager on the cardiothoracic unit. "In real life people are calm and controlled because if you get excited you could miss something. You need to stay focused and there's not a lot of theatrics but people doing their job."

ljohnston@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126