MedQuest gives students a taste of medicine, health care careers
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Posted By Pat Bailey, Leamington Post
Posted 1 month ago
Felicia Myronyk was looking to become a paramedic down the road — the only problem, she really didn't know if she could handle it.
The stress, the blood, the critical timing had the Grade 12 Leamington District Secondary School student questioning her career of choice.
But after a week at MedQuest camp, Myronyk is convinced she can stomach it all.
In fact, she may even consider becoming a surgeon.
That decision, she said, followed a half-day of shadowing Dr. Ejaz Ghumman.
She said getting the opportunity to watch Ghumman performing minor surgical procedures in the day clinic, convinced her that she is heading in the right direction.
She said learning to suture, perform CPR and give injections has opened her eyes to several options in the health care field.
For 15-year-old Dayna Mastronardi, a chance at shadowing in a pharmacy gave her some insight into the career path she thought she would follow.
While her day went fine in the pharmacy, it was the clinical practice and guest speakers that have her questioning her future now.
She still wants to go into the health care field, but Mastronardi said one of the highlights of the week for her was learning how to perform clinical procedures — especially giving injections.
Mastronardi said this, as well as listening to speaker Dr. Richard Gruneir have her reconsidering her plans.
She said she learned so much from Gruneir about the field of obstetrics and gynecology that has her thinking about following in his footsteps.
"This week gave the students the chance to see what they were really getting into," said second year medical student Michael Derynck, 23, of Tilbury, one of the leaders in the program.
"It's very important to give the kids hands on experience," he said.
In its fifth year, the camp, hosted annually to introduce students to a wide variety of health care fields — much of it through hands-on experience.
It is geared to those students entering Grade 11 or 12, who have a real interest in a post-secondary career in health care.
Derynck said he would have loved the opportunity to attend a similar camp before making his career decision.
He said one of the highlights of the week for many of the students was Friday's mock disaster at the marina.
Derynck said the scenario involved a driver, Mastronardi, suffering a stroke and striking a group of teens playing Frisbee in a parking lot.
Derynck said it gives the students the opportunity to watch the paramedics and firefighters in action — as if it were a real life and death emergency.
Anne Miskovsky, economic development officer for the municipality, said the program has been extremely successful over the years and she lauded the efforts of the paramedics and firefighters who volunteered their time to help the students, despite the tremendous heat.
But for relatively new firefighters like Stephen Peters, it's a chance to practice what he has learned about extrication.
"You can learn from books all you want," said Peters, who's been a firefighter here for two years, "but seeing, and actually doing it yourself — there's nothing like it."
In addition to the scene in the parking lot, the students also had an emergency room of sorts set up in the pavilion — to give the students a chance to take vital signs and assess their patients.
One of the hopes of the organizers is that some of the 22 students involved in this year's camp will become health care professionals and return to this underserviced area to practice.
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