FARMINGTON — Carefully holding a surgical needle, Summer Ross ties a knot as she practices suturing a pig’s foot Tuesday.  

Ross who will be a freshman at Mt. Abram High School in the fall knows she wants to become a veterinarian, she said as she took the suturing class at the 8th annual Scrub Club Camp held this week at Franklin Memorial Hospital.  

She is one of 43 students learning more about a variety of careers available in health care through many hands-on activities, demonstrations and instruction during the four-day camp.

This year we filled quickly and had a waiting list for the camp offered through a grant from the Area Health Education Center, Taffy Davis, MSN, RN-BC, a clinical instructor at FMH, said.  Western Maine AHEC is one of three sites throughout the state.

Students, grades 8 through 12, from area schools and even one from as far away as Virginia and another from Downeast Maine signed up for the camp, she said. There were several seniors this year who are still exploring their options for careers. About ten-percent were boys, the national average for nursing, Davis added.

A tour of the obstetrics ward Monday started Bailey Levesque, an 8th grade at Mt. Blue Middle School, thinking about becoming an OB nurse instead of the pediatric oncologist she thought she wanted to be, she said. But, she knew she loved the camp.

Job shadowing provides an opportunity to see where you want to go, Nicole Abell, surgical nurse, told another group of students who had donned surgical gowns and gloves to hear more about surgery.

There are so many specialties nurses can go in to, Abell and Kelli Gats, RN, told the students.  If you don’t like where you start, you can always switch later. There’s always more that can be learned, Abell said.

Although most students started their summer vacation last week, Monday morning found them back in the camp classes learning CPR and injections as they gave a shot to an orange, Davis said.

Some other highlights of the camp this year include a Dementia Room where students put on special goggles that alter their vision, gloves with popcorn-style additions to alter touch and black spots on the floor representing holes to maneuver around, she said. The goal is to give them a better understanding of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

They were exposed to intubation, insertion of a breathing tube into the trachea for mechanical ventilation, applied casts, worked on a dental simulator and became certified in Heartsaver CPR.  A group from Lewiston talked to them about brain injuries and a mock accident took place on Thursday, she said. 

Representatives from the Finance Authority of Maine held a session on “Claim the Future,” to start students thinking about what they want to do and the schools and vocation they will need to support that future, Davis said.

About 35 people at FMH volunteered their time to teach and work with the students, Davis said of the program designed to engage student’s interest and inspire them to consider and explore a career in health care.

abryant@sunmediagroup.net