On Monday, Mountain Home High School and Baxter Regional Medical Center partnered to host a white coat ceremony for high school senior interns in the high schools Dunbar Auditorium.During the event, Baxter Regional Medical Center personnel placed a white coat on all 23 student interns as well as a stethoscope around each of their necks. BRMC will also provide a blood pressure cuff for each student.
COVID-19 kept student interns out of hospital facilities last year, but this year they have been welcomed back into the hospitals education building as well as the Ed & Gayle Goodman Simulation Center.
Sarah Brozynski, the hospitals Director of Education, said that neither facility is used for direct patient care, but that students will still get world-class exposure to healthcare careers. Brozynski said that the white coats presented at the event are meant to be the first of many for these students.
Brozynski said, They may start off with nursing and continue on with medical school. They may start off as a paramedic and come back and go into social work.
Through the Introduction to Healthcare Careers program at BRMC, student interns will receive a CPR certification and will learn about radiology and x-ray technology by x-raying chickens from the butcher. In the simulation center, students will learn patient care through the use of a robotic mannequin. The mannequins can simulate a patient aged from young adult to geriatric. Students will explore four different patient settings with the mannequins: critical care, surgery, labor and delivery, and medical surgical. Student interns will also use the skills they learn throughout the semester to take part in trauma drills.
David Fox, BRMCs Chief Operating Officer, and Shannon Nachtigal, Chief Nursing Officer, shared their healthcare career journeys with the students and both elaborated on the importance of the step the students took at this event.
Fox told the students, What happens to the rest of your life begins today with the initiative that you all are taking with your white coat ceremony. Youll think back on today and youll reflect back to the beginning — this first step This is an important milestone in your career, in your life, in what you do.
Fox also spoke directly to the parents in attendance about the support their children would need as they enter careers in the healthcare field. He said, I will tell you, when those moments and those days come where theyre struggling, where theyre questioning what decisions they have made, what their choices are, theyll need your encouragement. Theyll need your coaching. They’ll need your love. They’ll need your support.
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