A large group of high school students recently spent a class session in the ER at Pardee Hospital – but not because any of them were injured.
Students enrolled in Career & Technical Education courses at North Henderson, East Henderson, West Henderson and Hendersonville high schools were treated to a hospital tour and lectures by Pardee medical professionals excited to see young faces interested in their professions.
The field trip was formed by Lynde Mickey, Pardee’s clinical staff development instructor, after many CTE students expressed interest in job shadowing nurses and doctors, said Jennifer Taylor, Henderson County Public Schools career development coordinator. The job-shadowing program is part of the CTE three-pronged work-based learning model, including apprenticeship and internship.
“We had a lot of them interested in the medical field,” Taylor said. “Most of them are in (their schools’) health science programs.”
Local leaders in nursing, hospital laboratories, physical therapy, nutrition, emergency medical services, women and children’s services, and surgery spoke to the group of students about their individual roles at Pardee and in the community, and answered the students’ questions about college enrollment, nursing programs and career opportunities.
“You have to have a head for science,” said Chief Nursing Officer Denise Lucas. “What you have to have partnered with that science is a caring for humanity.”
When students asked Lucas which colleges they should apply to if they wanted to pursue nursing careers, she advised them to look for schools with nursing programs that have high percentages of graduates that passed their state boards.
Carol Douglas, adviser for the WNC Regionally Increasing Baccalaureate Nurses (RIBN), added that the dual enrollment program with Western Carolina University and Blue Ridge Community College, A-B Tech, or Isothermal Community College is an option for students pursuing a career in nursing and an easy transition from associate degree to bachelor degree.
Douglas explained that through RIBN, students spend three years at the community college with dual enrollment online with WCU and receive their Associate Degree in Nursing at the end of the third year. They spend their fourth year at the WCU Biltmore Park campus, during which time they have the option to work part-time as a registered nurse while they complete their Bachelor of Science in Nursing Degree.
In addition to nursing, the CTE students learned about careers in the hospital laboratory from Pardee Lab Director Karla Ketwitz, about the role of the pharmacists in the hospital and ER – who gather patients’ medical histories, make IV’s, work on drug development, and assist in palliative care.
When the students visited a critical care room in the hospital’s ER, Shaun Clayton, ER clinical nurse manager, told them an ER nurse has to be ready for anything – and anyone.
“You have to know every system head to toe, and you have to know how to treat any age group,” Clayton said.
Amy Singletary, HCPS career development coordinator, said she appreciated Pardee’s help in “bringing the real world into the school,” and hopes future CTE students can have the same experience.
“As career development coordinators, it is so critical for Ms. Taylor and me to allow the students to see what the real world is like,” Singletary said.