At Kadlec camp, high school students get close look at healthcare jobs

Marisol Ramos didn’t spend her summer camp on arts and crafts or Capture the Flag.

Instead, the 16-year-old Connell girl watched a baby being born.

That’s right. An actual baby.

Marisol, an incoming junior at Connell High School, took part in Kadlec Regional Medical Center’s new Experience Healthcare summer camp.

As part of the weeklong camp, she shadowed an OB nurse. And, with the mother’s permission, she was able to witness the most miraculous part of the job.

“At first when I walked in, I was pretty scared,” Marisol said. But she grew more comfortable.

“Now that I’ve seen that, I know what I want to do. I want to do what (the nurse) does,” Marisol said.

About 40 high school students from around the Mid-Columbia participated in the camp.

It was the second session. Another group of students went through the camp in June.

“The goal of the week is to expose them to a variety of health care (fields),” said Nancy Dahlberg, a Kadlec ICU manager and one of the camp organizers.

The students did everything from shadow Kadlec employees in clinics and the hospital, to compete in Olympic-style healthcare-themed events, such as bandaging faux patients.

On Friday morning, the students worked in teams on a board game that gave them a taste of running an emergency department on a busy night.

“There are different floors. She has critical care, she has surgery, she has the ER and I have step-down. The blue (game pieces) are patients and the white ones are staff,” explained Klehe Bradshaw, 16. “It’s intense and you have to move fast.”

Klehe lives in Maryland and heard about the camp through a relative who works at Kadlec.

It’s been a rewarding experience, she said. “I’ve loved it.”

Rosa Torres feels the same way. The 16-year-old incoming senior at Pasco High School learned CPR, she learned about blood type testing, she spent time in the oncology department.

“It’s a really fun experience. I got to do a lot. It made me feel like I want to (be in) the medical field,” she said.

Dahlberg said the camp has been so successful in its inaugural year that officials hope to do it again next summer.

This story was originally published July 15, 2016 at 5:55 PM with the headline "At Kadlec camp, high school students get close look at healthcare jobs."