Students Get Hands On With Healthcare Careers

Approximately 20 students from Parkes and surrounds immersed themselves in healthcare careers through the Scrub In Work Experience Program.

Rather than shadowing just one clini­cian and field all week, students received a broad careers taste tester and rotated through 45-minute workshops, facility tours, speed networking and a career path­ways panel.

The teenagers tried out allied health, physiotherapy, social work, nursing, medi­cine, paramedicine and Aboriginal health and education. They learned how to: study realistic 3D printed bullet wounds, take mo­bility measurements, apply plaster casts, engage with stroke simulations and en­gage in a VR assessment of escalating pa­tients in a 6-bed ward.

Participating schools included Parkes High School, Tottenham Central, Peak Hill Central and Parkes Christian School.

Declan, from Parkes High School, Year 10 said, “When they offered this program I decided it might help me with future choic­es and I wanted to try different industries.

The activities we got up to today included nursing, social work, speech pathology and medicine. I originally wanted to do nursing, but after doing things like radiography that really caught my eye and I found an inter­est in that.”

Mia, also from Parkes High School, Year 10 said, “When I graduate I would like to do nursing in the hospital. I would like to help a lot of sick people because I’ve had sick people in my family and have seen how I can help them. We were drilling into a chicken bone and putting a syringe in to in­ject into the bone. Then we put an IV in and learned about what some kids have to deal with when they have speech impediments.”

Scrub In is designed to maximise hands on learning, broaden career awareness, clarify pathways into health, and reduce pressure on staff.

Troy Kelly, Senior Project Officer, Re­gional Industry Education Partnerships said “I think it’s given the students a much broader perspective than if they had gone through a conventional work experience program.”