A Healthcare Travelling Roadshow will be making its way through high schools in the Cariboo this week.
Dr. Sean Maurice, the Assistant Dean at the Northern Medical Program at UNBC and the Program Lead, says the idea is to plant the seed in students for a potential career in healthcare and to broaden the horizons of the medical students at the same time.
“We do that in an inter professional way so that the healthcare students get to learn a little bit about other healthcare programs because they don’t actually learn a lot about those in their regular training if we don’t do extra curricular things. That also allows the high-school students to see that there is a lot of diversity in healthcare.”
He says medical students in different professions go to the schools.
“We recruit provincially and we select a different group of students for each trip based on availability and interest, and we try to show some of the scope and breadth within healthcare. This trip we have lab sciences, psychiatric nursing, occupational therapy, dental hygiene, pharmacy and medicine.”
Dr. Maurice says there is a short power point presentation but the students also get to use some of the equipment, which he says is much more effective than just having them sit in a classroom and listen.
“Yes, absolutely. It’s engaging. When you do something with your hands, something kinesthetic, you’re more likely to remember it down the road. You’re also in a small group so you can ask the healthcare student whatever you want to ask like how much does it cost to go to medical school ? There is a lot of learning that goes on there about the profession or even just about human biology and health.”
The roadshow will visit Peter Skene Ogden in 100 Mile House tomorrow (Wednesday), Williams Lake and Lake City Secondary School in Thursday and then Quesnel Junior School and Correlieu Secondary on Friday.
The Healthcare Roadshow made its first trip back in 2010.
The Roadshow is delivered in partnership with the Northern Medical Programs Trust, Rural Education Action Plan, Interior Health, UNBC, and UBC Faculty of Medicine.