Campers get hearts pumping at Nursing and Health Care Academy

Janel Shoun | 

Seventeen Middle Tennessee teens headed home from Lipscomb University’s inaugural Nursing and Health Care Academy last week a little wiser and a little healthier.

The group learned how to take blood pressure, toured an ambulance and got their hearts pumping learning to read an EKG. They also enjoyed a tour of Centennial Medical Center to see the lab, a cardiac rehabilitation and physical therapy demonstration, the x-ray and MRI imaging suites and the pharmacy.

HCA’s TriStar Health System sponsored the camp, providing several health care workers to teach various techniques, healthy lunches and information on good nutrition, and several scholarships for minority students to attend the camp. The Urban League of Middle Tennessee recruited the minority students to attend.
Wednesday brought a lesson about electrocardiograms by Dr. Alan Bradshaw. Four groups of campers placed electrodes on their volunteer and monitored their heart rate as they lay still, sat up and after two minutes of exercise.

A television news report on this lesson can be viewed on Vicki Yates’ School Patrol, on Channel 5, WTVF-TV, on Wednesday, July 23 at 6 p.m.

Middle- and high-schoolers from throughout the city, received their own pair of purple scrubs for the camp and a stethoscope and various other goodies from Lipscomb and HCA/TriStar upon graduating on Friday, July 11.

The demand for nurses in Tennessee is expected to exceed supply by 9,500 over the coming years, so nursing and other health care professions are attractive career opportunities for today’s teens.

“As the need for dedicated, skilled health care professionals continues to grow, it is important to inspire interest at an early age. This unique program is an excellent way for students to learn what they need in terms of education, experience and passion for the work in order to achieve success in any health care profession,” said Mike Cassity, vice president of human resources for TriStar Health System.

Given its long-standing success in educating doctors and scientists, Lipscomb University saw the Nursing Academy as a way to bring its expertise in science to an additional group of students: high school and middle school students interested in nursing, said Ben Hutchinson, dean of the Lipscomb College of Natural and Applied Science.

The Lipscomb University College of Natural and Applied Sciences established a bachelor’s degree in nursing four years ago, and the university’s nursing students and graduates mentored participants during the experience.