LIMA, Ohio (WLIO) - It's never too early to start thinking about what you want to do for the rest of your life. That's exactly what these high school students were doing at Lima Memorial Health System as part of the hospital's explorer program.
"This is our first station, and we're doing trauma. So over here, we're working on sutures and staples on fake skin. Throughout the day, we're going to be doing OBGYN and also respiratory," says Ella Brinkman, Sophomore at Ottawa-Glandorf High School.
Before heading into the operating room, Brinkman and her fellow Ottawa-Glandorf classmate, Alivia Bellman, even performed life-saving measures inside one of Lima Memorial's trauma bays.
"We get to look at a lot of cool things that they do in the hospital setting: the hands-free CPR that we just came back from. It's just really cool to see like what they're doing on actual patients," says Alivia Bellman, Sophomore at Ottawa-Glandorf High School.
The kids also had the chance to perform a simulated natural birth and related newborn care at the OB station while also exploring ventilators and critical breathing disorders at the respiratory care station. No matter where, opportunities for learning and career exploration were present.
"This has given me like a very broad range of different careers. I am thinking about going to nursing school, and this program just really helps me, like, see different programs that I might be interested," says Bellman.
"I like to be a labor and delivery nurse right now, so whenever we do OB the station, I would love to see, like, how they work with babies and how they do all the deliveries and stuff. It gives you a lot of perspective and even learning, like, medical things in school, it ties into this, and I think it just really expands your learning," says Brinkman.
And one day, kids from the explorer program could make a difference at Lima Memorial in the future.
"We've had students participate in this. They've called. They've made arrangements to do shadowing here. They've actually, then, enrolled in nursing school. They've become healthcare aides here on our floor. They've graduated from nursing school, and they're employed here," says Joan McBride, Clinical Nurse Manager of OB, LMHS.
