'I'm excited to try suturing': Health camp gives high school students hands-on experience

It’s not your typical high school summer camp — instead of enjoying the outdoors, playing games, or working with children, 30 high school students are getting a hands-on education in health care at St. Thomas-Elgin General Hospital (STEGH).

“I’ve always had a big interest in the medical field and health care,” said Ellery Beilhartz, a student at East Elgin Secondary School in Aylmer, Ont. “We get to see about three to four different departments each day, and with those departments comes an activity as well. Today we get to do an IV and I'm really excited to try that.”

The Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry (SSMD) at Western University in London, Ont. is hosting Discovery Health Care camps at eight southwestern Ontario hospitals over the next two weeks.

Week one has camps in Goderich, Sarnia, Chatham and St. Thomas.

“The top thing we want them to do is have fun,” said Dr. Victor Ng, assistant dean at SSMD. “After all, it's the summer and they're high school students, so we want them to have a great time with our with our camp leaders, but also being able to have the opportunity to do things such as suturing, or putting in IV lines, and understanding anatomy.”

Students even get to tour the hospital — Monday morning, STEGH general surgeon Dr. Rob Black took students to the operating room.

“There's a huge demand for allied health personnel as in addition to, physicians and nurses,” said Black. “It's, one of the fastest-growing fields for vocations for our youngsters that are in high school currently. The demand is just going to get even higher. We're hoping that this increases the number of people that are interested in a future career in health care. Not just medicine, surgery and nursing, but allied health care in general.”

First-year medical student Mia Van Oirschot (right) demonstrates a breathing apparatus to high school students at Discovery Healthcare Camp while fellow instructor Katie Roberts looks on in St. Thomas, Ont. (Brent Lale/CTV News London)Many of the students, like Jack Teare, don’t know their future career plans, but think this camp is something that could steer them in the right direction.

“I’m trying to pick a career path to go to, and I have a big interest in physiotherapy,” said Teare, 15, who attends Central Elgin Collegiate Institute in St. Thomas. “I thought why not give this a shot? I'm excited to try this suturing and just kind of get kind of hands on.”

SSMD has been doing these camps for 15 years, and some of the original teenage students now have careers in health care.

“That is ultimately, what we're hoping for is for them to come back to Southwestern Ontario and work back in their community,” said Ng. “So we've had a number of students come back, whether they could come back as nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists, doctors, and it's been really exciting for us, to be able to, to introduce people to this sort of passion of being in health care professions and ultimately getting them back to work in their communities where they live.”