| Treasa Colby and Jennie Dennis attend medical camp. |
Melissa Brinkerhoff of Orangeville, Jennie Dennis of Cleveland and Treasa Colby of Huntington recently traveled to Cedar City, along with 75 other high school students, to attend the Southern Utah University Center for Rural Health’s eighth annual Health Career Exploration Camp. The camp, designed to help high school students explore the health care industry, provided hands-on experiences and learning opportunities for those who attended.
At the camp, participants were divided into two tracks and rotated among 16 different workshops. Some of the workshops featured health career skills where participants learned to suture, cast arms, check blood sugar levels, take a blood pressure, intubate, give an injection, provide first-aid and more. In science labs students looked at blood smears through microscopes, extracted their own DNA, made their own teeth impressions, and made chapstick. Careers that were featured included, respiratory therapy, nursing, doctor, physician assistant, occupational therapy, exercise science, veterinary, physical therapy, EMT, pharmacy, genetics, medical technologist, and dentistry.
Because there is such a need for more health care workers in rural Utah, the goal for this camp is simple. According to Carrie Torgersen, camp coordinator, “This camp is specifically designed to give students from rural areas opportunities to learn about health care careers in a hands-on way that is not always available to them. Our hope is that by introducing students to health care from rural areas, they are more inclined to go back to a rural area to work after their education is finished.”
The Health Career Exploration Camp will be held again next year at Southern Utah University in June.