Lately, we’ve heard about a number of different summer camps in our region – specializing in everything from making movies to building computers, and it seems kids have the opportunity to learn whatever they want over the summer. Carilion Clinic operates one that could help some teenagers better determine their career paths.
Carilion Clinic’s career explore camp is a week long look at life in the medical field for some pretty ambitious Roanokers. The group of teenagers get a look at everything from the trauma lab to the pediatric unit. And – they’re attending out of their own desire to enter the field later in life. I asked rising eighth grader Ronan about the application process as students toured a nearby ambulance:
“So you had to write a short paragraph saying why you wanted to get into the camp and why you were interested in the medical field. And if they liked the paragraph, they would accept it. I was talking about how I thought this camp would help me decide on what part of the medical field I would like to go into. Because I’ve known for a while now that I want to be a doctor, but I don’t know what type yet.”
Aubrey is another rising eighth grader in the program, who, at the age of thirteen, is also hoping to learn more about what she might want to pursue:
“My dad actually suffered congestive heart failure, and he was airlifted to UVA from Carilion. So I’ve always had a good experience with Carilion, and after that experience I’ve always wanted to do something in the medical field.”
Ronan and Aubrey were among the 17 campers – and Student Service Advisor Karri Proctor says the group had some eclectic ambitions:
“We have ones that want to be nurses, to pediatric surgeons, to neurosurgeons, to radiologists. I mean, we have a little bit of everything this year, which is fantastic. Because we give them handouts and all kinds of information all week letting them know what kind of schooling that requires – and believe me, that’s a shocker sometimes.”
Proctor says they’ve been getting up close and personal with everything in the field – role playing as doctors and nurses, diagnosing hypothetical patients, and learning about the body - including organs. The campers got a glimpse at live organs, which made some a bit squeamish – but if that got too ‘real,’ they also learned about moulage:
“It’s makeup that makes someone look like they’ve been in a trauma. So we had everything from burns to gashes to ‘I jumped through a window’ – with pieces of window hanging out of their hand.”
Proctor says the moulage instructors were a husband and wife team who went to art school but work in the medical field, proving that you don’t exactly have to be medical to be in the medical field:
“They can do exactly what they want in a field more aligned with what they like to do. You know, not everyone who’s an artist wants to paint paintings, sometimes they want to make gory, gross cuts and burns.”
This is the ninth year the program has operated, meaning the inaugural group could be somewhere in the midst of medical school by now – Proctor says they’re combing through that information to see just what paths alumni have taken.
