News

student at MEDCAMP

So You Want to Be a Physician

How often does a recently graduated high school student have the opportunity to learn how to take a patient’s blood pressure and read EKGs?

A group of soon-to-be undergraduate students, college freshmen, sophomores and juniors recently attended Northeast Ohio Medical University’s MEDCAMP, a three-day medical school simulation.

Students were given a made-up patient case to solve, then progressed from station to station, learning techniques from measuring blood pressure to taking an EKG as they learned about different systems of the body and the ways physicians gather information to make a diagnosis. Over the three-day period, the future health-care professionals learned about topics ranging from neurobiology, microbiology and anatomy to lung and heart sounds, pulse and respiratory rates, and blood pressure.

Getting a head start

April Enger, a rising third-year College of Medicine student, served as the program’s lead mentor.

“For undergraduate students, I think getting a taste of what medical school is like is important. I know that my first experience with an EKG wasn’t until the second semester of my first year of medical school. Early exposure definitely helps you feel more comfortable later on,” says Enger.

Lena Sawalha, a soon-to-be freshman at the University of Akron, said MEDCAMP was a great anatomy and biology refresher.

Kaitlin Niek, a rising sophomore at Bowling Green State University, used MEDCAMP as a way to explore her interest in medicine.

“I know that I want to go to medical school after college, said Niek. “MEDCAMP was a really good opportunity for me to experience what med school might be like.”