Nursing Academy goes to high school

Amanda Barrows

Cedar Park High School student Amanda Barrows checks for germs under a blacklight while Jean Montgomery, associate professor of nursing, and other high school students look on.

The mannequin lay lifeless in a nursing lab at Eastview Campus, but under that thick skin beat a heart.

Listening for heart and lung noises was just one part of the one-day Nursing Academy, an event held annually for high school students interested in the profession.

“The goal is to get the word out to our young people in the high schools about nursing,” says Robin Graybill, student services specialist in the Nursing Department. “It’s a great career.”

Twenty-seven students from area high schools took part in the program last semester. It included presentations, an open forum, a tour of Austin Community College’s Health Sciences facility, and lab demonstrations.

The lab sessions were divided into four 20-minute sections dealing with the importance of hand-washing; transporting patients; listening to heart and lung sounds; and a heart attack. In the latter two, mannequins were programmed to produce such ailments.

“We want to create an environment that feels like a hospital … so they can see what it feels like to be a healthcare professional,” says Buffy Allen, associate professor in vocational nursing.

Allen demonstrated to students how to transport a patient using a “gait belt” wrapped around the waist. Debra Jones, assistant to the clinical skills coordinator, showed them how to interpret heart and lung sounds – crackling indicates fluid in the lungs, she said.

Cedar Park High School student Amanda Barrows, 18, attended the program because she wants to become a registered nurse. She even dressed for the occasion, donning colorful scrubs. She plans on attending ACC and was glad she came to the Nursing Academy.

“It’s great,” she says. “I like the hands-on abilities that we’ve experienced.”

Barrows also took part in the handwashing workshop that featured fluorescent orange “Glo Germ” being placed on their hands. A blacklight helped them see the germs that remained even after handwashing – Barrows’ fingernails lit up.

“That’s not good,” she says.

But the good news is ACC’s Registered Nursing Program has expanded. Barrows and other future nurses have a better chance of getting their nurse training sooner because of the opening of the Clinical Education Center in downtown Austin. In response, ACC increased the program’s enrollment by 50 percent this fall, an additional 100 student nurses per year.

Click here to view KVUE-TV’s news coverage of the Nursing Academy.

Back to Top