Paging future doctors
Children get hands-on experience
Fresh from the slaughterhouse, the pig lungs and heart were placed on the low table. Little gloved hands reached in and poked the glistening organs.
"It feels really spongy," Cailley Factor, 6, said of a lung.
The Post and Courier
John Chakeris, 6 (from left); Clara Richards, 5; Grace Richards, 4; Cailley Factor, 6; check out a pig heart during a pilot program of RX Medical Discovery at Roper Hospital on Thursday.
"Why do you think it feels spongy?" asked Joanne Davidson, a cardiothoracic surgical nurse with Roper St. Francis Healthcare.
Rx Medical Discovery is a pilot program at Roper Hospital for children ages 5 to 8 to get hands-on clinical science experience.
Program Coordinator and hospital volunteer Amy Condon planned the mini-medical school lessons: six one-hour tutorials led by Roper physicians and hospital professionals.
"We tried to cover the basic organ systems and find a physician to match that," said Condon, a medical technologist by trade. "We try to have fresh organs for the children to look at."
The pilot was made possible by a donation to the Roper St. Francis Foundation by Mallory and Elizabeth Factor, Cailley's parents.
"Things like this have a major impact on young minds," Mallory Factor said. "You do not dumb it down for kids."
After the test program, the goal is to reach out to schoolchildren throughout the region. "I'd love to see this become a program we can offer to lots of children. They're like little sponges," Condon said.
"Children this age, while they may seem too young to absorb sophisticated concepts, take in more than you think," said Dr. Jeb Hallett, medical director of Roper St. Francis Heart and Vascular Services.
Hallett led a lesson titled "Where's my heart?" Children left with little plastic heart models so they could continue learning at home.
The children's program is part of a larger effort, Medical Discovery Program for the Charleston Community. Each year, an influential medical scientist will talk to the community in an open forum, Hallett said.
Ultimately, Hallett hopes the visiting scientists will spark interest and conversation among area business leaders and medical manufacturers.
Reach Jill Coley at 937-5719 or jcoley@postandcourier.com.
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Comments
RTC (anonymous) says...
Whether this program sparks the interests of young children to become doctors or not, it could definitely help the kids become less apprehensive of the medical environment.
I sure wish they had programs like this when I was growing up.
May 27, 2008 at 10:19 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
eyfigueroa (anonymous) says...
early: i was just thinking the same thing. Poor kids don't have a clue as to how much of their $ will go to malpractice insurance, thanks to a sue-happy society.
May 27, 2008 at 12:13 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
abitskeptical (anonymous) says...
I think the happiest doctors now are ones working in rural towns where doctoring is what it used to be: "the art of medicine."
When a tremendous amount of patient care is dictated by insurance rules & hospital policy, instead of the judgment & discernment of the physician, it makes one wonder, why don't the insurance & hospital CEO's go to medical school?
I know about a surgeon in a small hospital in the mid-state who was "fired" because he disregarded hospital policy & kept his patients there post-op for as long as he deemed it medically necessary. He was an excellent surgeon BTW.
Hospitals "discourage" longer stays because they make the most money in the 1st few days after admission, therefore they like fast patient turn arounds.
Of course, the insurance companies don't like paying anything if they don't have to, so they discourage the longer stays for that reason.
May 27, 2008 at 12:15 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
RTC (anonymous) says...
abitskeptical, no truer words have been spoken.
Doctors are just as frustrated, if not more so, than the average patient. They are tired of having insurance companies dictate to them how to treat their patients. I feel that the vast majority of doctors would do a whole lot more concerning patient care if they were allowed to do what they considered best for the patient.
My husband had his CABG on a Thursday and was sent home on Sunday morning. We joked that it was called "crack 'em and pack 'em". It wasn't a joke though, as he had tremendous swelling in his calf and severe pain after his release. It was very frightening having someone in this condition at home. Good thing that I have a medical background, or else I truly don't know what I would have done.
May 27, 2008 at 12:39 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
lillycollette (anonymous) says...
Whether or not the children become doctors-they are learning-what could be better. I had a lot of these types of experiences as a child and it opened up the fields of medicine and law for me.
An early hospital release never frightened me after being in for two years fighting my way back from full paralysis. WOW-talk about glad to get home! (LOL)
May 27, 2008 at 1:11 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
lillycollette (anonymous) says...
Just passing this along to anyone who may be interested:
Pledge to Higher Quality, Lower Cost Health Care
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeac...
May 27, 2008 at 3:41 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
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