Copyright 2005 Gannett Company, Inc.
USA TODAY
By MARRISSA NEWHALL
On a Saturday morning at Tidewater Community College in Virginia Beach, 18 high school students gather around a 25-year-old woman who they have been told is having severe trouble breathing. They are to address the crucial question: How do they save her life?
The experience is part of an emergency medical technician training session; the “victim” is a student acting out a role in a routine group exercise.
The 18 participants, however, are anything but routine. The sophomores, juniors and seniors, some as young as 16, attend Bayside High School Health Sciences Academy, a magnet program in Virginia Beach that prepares students for careers in health care.
Since this fall, Bayside students have been able to enroll in a year of specialized courses to earn a basic EMT certification.
Specific numbers aren’t yet available, but Joann Freel, executive director of the National Association of EMS Educators, says EMT education in high schools is a growing national trend.
At a time when advanced degrees are preferred or required in most fields, Bayside Health Sciences Academy coordinator Bonnie Alder says her school’s program motivates students with visions of becoming medical professionals.
And with expectations by the Department of Labor that employment of EMTs and their more advanced counterparts, paramedics, will increase 36% or more through 2012, basic certification has become a foot in the door to a profession increasingly in demand.
And not just for the large tragedies represented by hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and the drowning of 20 people on a tour boat on Lake George in New York this summer. Everyday emergencies make it clear how important it is to have people capable to assist in a crisis, says Ron Flannigan, administrator of a program similar to Bayside’s in rural Stevens County, Minn.
“I can think of a couple events here where people have had heart attacks,” he says. “Our students handled the crowd, coordinated a response and brought these people home to their families. It’s the day to day where you save a life here and save a life there. This is where these students intervene somehow, somewhere, every day.”
Students who complete Flannigan’s program participate in first-aid teams at their schools and can assist in ambulance response calls covering a 5,000-square-mile area considered “ultra-rural.” The influence of such programs to encourage students earning medical degrees to return to their home towns after college is vital to combat the areas’ shortage of health care providers, Flannigan says.
Graduates of Bayside’s yearlong program leave high school with seven college credits, says Gwen Carr, Tidewater Community College dean of health professions. They also will be eligible to test for basic EMT certification and pursue jobs requiring it, such as firefighting or beach lifeguarding.
“You’ve already stepped way ahead of folks who have been a firefighter for years and don’t have the credentials,” Carr says.
Says Brooke Carrington, 16, a Bayside junior seeking basic EMT certification, “I’ve wanted to be a doctor since I was 5.” As a Virginia Beach lifeguard this past summer, Carrington made seven rescues of conscious patients and participated in a “redline” drag, in which several lifeguards hold hands and dive in a line to comb the sea bottom for a drowning victim.
Carrington and her classmates will take six credits of EMT classes and participate in four-hour “practicals” each Saturday, learning everything from lifting stretchers to writing hospital reports.
“Most folks who are EMTs ... are very hands-on,” says Helen Nelson, the college’s basic-life-support program coordinator. “Even the students who are quiet in a lecture come to life during a practical.”
In the spring, each student will spend a 10-hour shift shadowing an emergency room nurse.
Not just any high school student is EMT material, says Stevens County paramedic and instructor Jim Gillis. His students normally rank in the top 10% of their class, he says. “Young people get a bad rap these days, but there are a lot of kids out there who are mature and care about their peers, and we get to work with them. It makes us believe that this next generation is really going to be OK.”
Carrington says she’s tackling her EMT classes while taking seven others this year, including medical microbiology and advanced placement English.
Teaching teens basic lifesaving skills could benefit the public down the road. Having more programs such as those offered by Bayside could address a universal need for first responders, Nelson says.
“Hurricanes or not, it doesn’t matter. All the beginning assessment and initial stabilization are the same. That’s definitely something that’s important for the community and the nation as a whole.”