Students Learn About Medical Fields at Career Fair | Video

Juli McDonald | 10/8/2010

Choosing a college and major can be stressful for high school students, especially if they`re not positive what they want to be when they grow up. But, a career fair at the University of Mary today let high school students explore their options.

Doctors and nurses are jobs that most people have heard of and understand. Today at U of Mary, students got to ask questions and learn about other roles in health care, like athletic training.

"They might see somebody working a game and they might think that`s all that`s involved in athletic training is taping and watching football games," said Rachel Johnson Krug, U of Mary athletic training curriculum coordinator. "In reality we do a lot of rehab, and we do a lot of injury prevention in our field."

Will Beachey from the respiratory therapy program showed students what a healthy lung compared to a smoker`s lung looks like and how the two function differently.

Beachey said, "One thing that respiratory therapists do is we get into smoking cessation, and we try to, especially with high school population, teach them about the hazards of smoking and this is kind of a graphic demonstration of that."

Students learned what courses they would need in pursuing different careers, and the work that each job involves. Students learned about providing physical care, and also about the emotional needs of patients.

"We look at the whole person, not just the physical. We look at the emotional components of a human being," added Michelle Peake, clinical coordinator of occupational therapy. "Anyone who has had a trauma or a setback that those are the things we want to bring back into their life. Bring them independence and bring their function back.

None of the students needed to make final decisions about their futures today. The career fair is simply a learning opportunity for students, where they can ask questions and discover their own interests.

From U of Mary, the students then went to Medcenter One College of Nursing, where they rotated through four stations including patient and birthing simulators, wound care and sterile techniques.

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