Day camp students get experience in medical field

Franklin Memorial Hospital Education Director Karen Rogers helps Scrub Club participants Brooke Holmquist, left, and Kaitlin Langervin, both from Dixfield, give injections to oranges on Thursday during the weeklong day camp held at the hospital in Farmington.

Buy a print

- Ann Bryant/Sun Journal

Franklin Memorial Hospital Education Director Karen Rogers helps Scrub Club participants Brooke Holmquist, left, and Kaitlin Langervin, both from Dixfield, give injections to oranges on Thursday during the week- long day camp held at FMH in Farmington.

Buy a print

- Ann Bryant/Sun Journal

FARMINGTON — More than 50 high school students are getting more than a taste of experience in the medical field this week during the annual Scrub Club held at Franklin Memorial Hospital.

The weeklong day camp is sponsored by FMH and a University of Maine at Farmington program, Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduates Program, also known as GEAR UP.

The camp includes a mock accident scene, traumatic brain injury, suturing, casting and learning some American Sign Language, said Karen Rogers, director of education at FMH. She and Taffy Davis were teaching one group of students the techniques of injections on Thursday morning at the hospital.

The club receives funding from the Maine Area Health Education Center Network, which encourages Maine youths to explore medical careers.

As the students prepared to inject oranges, Davis stressed the importance of knowing the metric system in order to get the correct dosages.

New this year, students tried their hands at working on teeth with a dental stimulator, Rogers said. The camp also had a special manikin, a Mediman, which has a heartbeat and blood pressure. The unit can even be programmed to die or to get better, she said.

Students in grades eight to 11 from Farmington, Rumford, Dixfield, Livermore Falls and Jay  schools, along with a couple of students from New Hampshire are enrolled in the day camp, Rogers said. She had received requests to attend from the out-of-state students.

The GEAR UP program offers tutoring and mentoring, activities on the UMF campus, after-school and summer programs to help students in rural schools work toward more than a high school diploma. They work primarily with students from Mountain Valley High School in Rumford, Dirigo in Dixfield and Jay High School.

abryant@sunjournal.com