SUNDRE – A program launched in 2017 to show high school students a variety of different career paths in rural health care is potentially poised to expand its reach to include middle schoolers.
Originally introduced as a nurses’ skills day for senior students at Sundre High School, the initiative has since evolved to encompass a greater spectrum of other fields to become known as a health-care skills day.
On March 13, about 40 high school students mostly from Sundre but also Caroline and Cremona were offered the opportunity to participate in several stations that included introductory lessons about airway intubation, cardiac treatment, X-ray lab technician work, suturing, pharmacy, emergency medical services (EMS), and dental hygiene.
“There’s young people that are coming through for the second time now because they’re really interested,” said Gerald Ingeveld, chair of the Sundre Hospital Futures Committee, which in partnership with organizations like the Rural Health Professions Action Plan (RhPAP) spearheaded the program.
Among past participants who were eager to return was McKenzie Lorimer, a Grade 11 Sundre High School student.
“My goal is to become a member of the Alberta health care family,” said Lorimer, who plans to attend the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology to become either a primary care paramedic or work in Advance Care Planning.
“The best part of the day for me was the EMT fire station. Being in a paramedic vehicle is one of the coolest and most fascinating things to learn about.”
Lorimer said she appreciates the opportunity her community has provided to students.
“I think it’s important to get a hands-on aspect of the health-care world instead of listening to a lecture or studying notes, just to get a feel for whether it is something you might enjoy doing as a career for the rest of your life,” she said.
For years, the event had been held at the Myron Thompson Health Centre where available space has become increasingly scarce with the passing of time.
“The one training room that we had at the hospital now is full of computers for the Connect Care training,” said Ingeveld.
So ever since last year, the skills day has been hosted in other locations including the new eSIM lab and the immediately adjacent Sundre Fire Department hall, which also has an ambulance bay all in one building that’s connected.
Members of the fire department and the ambulance crew demonstrated their brand new LUCAS device – an automatic chest compression unit – that was acquired just last year, he said.
Local dental hygienist Maria Gamelin also offered up some space once again after getting involved for the first time just last year.
“She basically closed her shop for the day so that she could have the different groups of students come through,” said Ingeveld, adding that all manner of health-care professionals including dentists and optometrists can be a challenge to secure in rural areas.
The initiative also feeds into the hospital futures committee’s vision for Sundre to become a centre that can serve as a rural health-care training hub through partnerships with several institutions such as but not limited to the University of Calgary and Olds College, he said.
“We’re already partnering with all those institutions who provide rural health-care training and to develop a satellite location for that type of training,” he said.
“We’re working with Campus Alberta Central to put on a health-care aide course again this year,” he said, adding there are also medical students completing their education through residencies at the local hospital.
“Sundre really has a reputation as being a rural learning centre already,” he said. “We really want to build on that and make this kind of the centre of rural learning for this part of Alberta.”
Asked if that might mean developing a model that other rural municipalities might seek to emulate in their own efforts to recruit and retain health-care professionals, he said, “Or to take advantage of. Let’s say you’re working in Didsbury or you’re working in Rocky Mountain House; would you rather come and take some training in another small town, or do you want to go to the city?”
Ingeveld suggested there should be similar rural health-care training communities at least in every quadrant in the province.
“And I think ours would be a great place to represent kind of the west central part of the province,” he said.
Ingeveld said he felt the new eSIM lab was already exceeding expectations.
“The eSIM lab was absolutely necessary and it’s working out to be even more flexible than we imagined,” he said.
“I think we’re only scratching the surface,” he said, adding the committee is hosting a conference on April 11 after inviting some other recruitment and retention organizations from the region.
“Our intention is to showcase how having exceptional training facilities can really boost your attraction and retention for health-care professionals,” he said.
“They live for training – they always want to get better, they always want to work better as a team,” he said.
“For us, I think it’s a great retention tool.”
But it can also serve to recruit, which is a major driving force behind the skills day.
“The feedback we’re getting from the young people is, there were some that had been there before and they were excited to come back again because there were some new things to learn … I really don’t see any reason not to continue the program,” he said.
Quite the opposite, in fact, as the program is now poised for potential expansion to include middle schoolers.
“We might be able to run something by the fall … it would be oriented a little bit different, like for younger kids,” he said, suggesting the possibility of a station demonstrating how to put a cast on a patient.
“That’s kind of when they’re already starting to talk about career possibilities,” he said about students in grades 6, 7 and 8.
“That was always the challenge with the high school skills day; if you’re showing up in Grade 12 to check this out, you might already have a pretty solid education and career path planned,” he said.
“It’s nice to jump on them a little bit early and just give them that option to consider.”
River Valley School principal Leslie Cooper-Shand, who attended this year’s skills day alongside some colleagues and the school council chair, expressed both appreciation and enthusiasm for having been invited to participate.
“We strongly believe that engaging kids at the middle school level in exciting opportunities like this, increases their motivation to do well in school as they become more aware of the relevance of their learning in the world of work,” said Cooper-Shand.
The roots of the skills day stem from the Sundre Health Professional Attraction and Retention Committee, which falls under the futures committee’s umbrella, as well as the Wetaskiwin Health Foundation.
“This is one of many strategies we employ to attract health-care professionals,” said Joyce Wicks, a former Registered Nurse who practised in Sundre and Olds, and Hospital Futures member.
“Research shows us that if we can help to grow the people in our own community, they may go away to get their formal schooling, but are more likely to come back to our community,” she said.
“The campus of care is our goal,” said Ingeveld.
“It’s something that we are going to attain in this community. This is one piece of that puzzle – there are a lot of pieces, but that’s a pretty important one and I think we nailed that one.”
