Columbus St. Francis DeSales High School and Mount Carmel Health System recently partnered to create a program exposing interested DeSales students to possible careers in the field of healthcare. Opportunities ranged from medical employees giving talks to students at lunch to students being present in operating rooms and observing surgeries.
The idea for the collaboration came from DeSales principal Dan Garrick.
“(Garrick) had a vision to bring a sports medicine and exercise science program to our school,” DeSales vice principal Jim Jones said. “His vision was the result of so many of our graduates, (who), when they leave St. Francis DeSales, they go out into the health fields. We wanted to give our young people the opportunity to explore that while they were here as students.”
Garrick reached out to former DeSales parent Dr. Bryan Ghiloni, a family and sports medicine physician at Mount Carmel, who was excited to help get the program up and running. “(Ghiloni) introduced us to Mrs. Beth Siracuse who is also someone who works prominently in the Mount Carmel Health hospital networks,” Jones said.
Siracuse, director of employer services at Mount Carmel, arranged for DeSales students to visit the health system’s New Albany Surgical Center to observe knee and hip replacements. “They get to meet with the physicians,” Jones said, “(who) talk about the procedure and then (students) actually get to go into a cadaver lab and practice (operating) on a leg or arm.”
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According to Siracuse, a primary goal in bringing kids into a medical atmosphere is to see firsthand that healthcare careers can take many different forms. “It’s very important to expose these students to the various aspects of healthcare where you don’t just have to be a doctor or nurse,” she said.
“There are kids who won’t go to college, and they don’t need to go to college to be in (this) field. To me, that was a big key factor–getting these kids in an environment where they get a chance to talk to (not only) the surgeons (but also) the operating room techs, the front desk staff, the accountants, the HR (human resources). We’ve brought pretty much everyone in to talk to these kids on their turf.”
Jones said the high schoolers’ reacted to the experience enthusiastically. “I actually had the opportunity to go with the students on one of the field trips to New Albany,” he said, “and it was amazing to see (their) reactions when … the knee joint was put in place. Very positive reactions.
“It was also really neat to see they weren’t afraid to practice on a cadaver, and some of them walked away thinking, ‘you know, this is something that I really want to do in the future,’ in terms of being a surgical nurse or surgeon.”
In addition to outings to the surgery center, another component of the program is a “Lunch and Learn series.” Mount Carmel invites professionals from various medical fields to come and speak to DeSales students about their jobs.
“We had the nutritionist for the Columbus Fury (Major League Volleyball) come and talk to our students about nutrition,” Jones said. “We have had pharmacists. We have had people that work on the business side of medicine come and speak. I think the young people have really benefited from it.”
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For the future of the partnership with Mount Carmel, Jones expressed hopes to expand by bringing more speakers from various fields in for the Lunch and Learn series. “We want to bring in professionals from different fields each year,” he said.
Although DeSales offers a broad range of exercise science courses, including athletic training, fitness nutrition, kinesiology and sports psychology, Jones said the school’s goal is to enhance their offerings to keep up with the constantly evolving field.
“We want to continue to expand our offerings in the area of exercise science and sports medicine,” he said. “As the field of sports medicine and exercise science grows, we want to grow with it, to give our young people an opportunity to stay ahead of the game and to kind of meet their future before they even get there.”
