HEALTH CAREERS: Kern Valley Camp Aims to Spark Interest
Administrators at Kern Valley High School health academy -- known as ECHO -- in conjunction with the Kern County School-to-Career Partnership, have created a unique way to spark student interest in health careers, a medical mystery day camp. Participating campers witness a staged medical emergency and are given the task of determining its cause through interviews with physicians, emergency-technicians and other medical staff of the Kern Valley Hospital. Program Coordinator Sandy Mittelsteadt said that the camp's goal is to "help students learn about health careers and to think critically." After participating in the camp Tuesday, Tom Cormack, a science teacher at Kern Valley High and ECHO's lead teacher, said, "This was a really exciting way to yield a look at jobs available in the medical field. We've had guest speakers before and taken tours of the hospital, but this scenario gave a much clearer context to health care jobs." The script and video of the program will be sold by the Kern Valley Healthcare Foundation, with proceeds benefitting the area's mobile mammogram unit (Wilson, Bakersfield Californian, 7/14).
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