by JIM CULLEN
Nurse Liane Hayes, RN IV, at Seton Medical Center Hays, explains delivery room procedures to Academy High School students. About two dozen Academy students accompanied Principal Gail Rhodes to Seton for a full tour of the new facility and a behind-the-scenes look at many of its facilities. Closely following Nurse Hayes, along with a room full of classmates, were (left to right) Amity Knight and sister China Knight. (Photo by Jim Cullen)
In an effort to give interested Academy High School students an opportunity to learn more about health care career opportunities, Seton Medical Center Hays recently hosted two dozen of the local students in a behind-the-scenes look at the facility.
Academy Principal Gail Rhodes put her students in the hands of Pam Crowther, Seton Director of Volunteers, and Crowther put together a trip her visitors won’t soon forget. Their morning took them to hospital sites as far ranging as a hospital delivery room to the inner sanctum of hospital security.
Along the way they met such hospital staffers as RN Laura Rosales, who offered her constant real-world analysis of health care from her professional perspective, and RN Liane Hayes, who described in detail the procedures the hospital uses in child delivery.
The full group of Academy students finally gathered for a hospital food services lunch of pizza, before getting the opportunity to meet with and question Dr. Patrick Garcia, Vice President of Medical Affairs, and Herb Dyer, Vice President and Project Executive – Chief Operating Officer for the hospital.
Garcia and Dyer described their jobs, lauded the critical work of their professional teams and offered the visiting students their advice and frank answers to serious questions. Paramount was their advice to the students not to limit their expectations and encouragement about the projected job growth of health care in this country.
The two directed the Academy visitors toward hospital volunteer director Crowther for possible involvement in the hospital’s programs in the short range, as part of an exploratory look at healthcare as a profession.
