ASPIRING medical students will be given hands-on experience this week at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (SCGH), part of the Future Health Professionals program.
The week-long intensive stint, formerly known as the Future Doctors program, will allow 30 hand-selected years 11 and 12 students around WA to take part in medical lectures and workshops.
“There is a lot more to medicine than being a doctor,” SCGH doctor of renal medicine Hadley Markus said.
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READ NOWDr Markus said the program, run by Scitech, the Department of Postgraduate Medical Education, Centre for Nursing Education and SCGH, would to teach students about the intra-professional nature of medicine.
“We practise medicine today in multi-disciplinary teams,” he said.
“It’s about teaching them there’s a lot of different professionals involved in the care of patients and each of those professionals bring a specific skill set and views to the patient through a different lens.”
A group of professionals including paediatricians, paramedics, plastic surgeons, sleep scientists and dentists will teach students how to perform a renal biopsy, close wounds through stapling, surgical gluing and suturing.
“They will learn how to do suturing and then understand ultrasound skills but on the last day they will view a simulation scenario, at SCGH’s new Simulation Centre, involving a patient having an anaphylaxis attack,” Dr Markus said.
“We’re taking a wide approach to teaching, we’re doing large groups, classroom style teaching but most of it is hands-on skills and doing things that get them involved with learning.”
Mandurah Catholic College Year 12 student Chelsea Morfitt was one of two regional students who received an Aspire UWA scholarship, which covered the costs of the program.
The 16-year-old teen said she found the program insightful and successful in showcasing the different pathways and opportunities available in the medicine industry.
“I want to become a paediatric surgeon one day as I love kids and would love to work in that area, or even a cardiac surgeon; it’s a big field,” she said.