For the third year, Northwest Hospital Center,in Randallstown is providing area high school students the opportunity to gain a behind-the-scenes look at how a medical practice operates during a typical day. Northwest Hospital�s Nursing Camp is designed to introduce students who are interested in a future in medicine to the challenges and responsibilities of patient care in clinical settings and to witness the use of recently developed medical techniques and technology.
Sandra Porterfield, director of Volunteer Services, works hard to ensure the campers are exposed to different areas of the hospital including the emergency room, labor and delivery, surgery, orthopedics, cardiology, radiology and geriatrics.
One of the unique qualities about our program is that we give the students the opportunity to experience what really happens in the hospital, from the blood bank to the operating rooms,� said Porterfield. Campers are even taken through a mock �emergency code,� which takes the want-to-be nurses through the entire patient care experience from the ambulance ride to admission.�
Eight local high school students will attend Northwest Hospital�s Nursing Camp this summer, which runs from July 25-29, 2005.
With a nationwide shortage of nurses, Northwest Hospital and LifeBridge Health are actively involved addressing these shortages in Maryland, which is projected to need 13,000 nurses by 2010 � the same year many of the students attending Northwest�s Nursing Camp will be graduating from college.
