LifeLab hosts Summer School
Recently forty students, aged 8-10yrs, from across the South of England, attended the Summer School in LifeLab.
The programmes included a range of exciting, informative and hands-on workshops delivered by Medical Students, Intensive Care Consultants, Emergency Department Nurses and other Healthcare Professionals.
The Faculty of Medicine student helpers were fantastic. Twenty, from 2nd years to 5th years, ran the teaching sessions in clinical skills and anatomy, supported respectively by Carl Read and Scott Border. A couple of them also stayed for the Q&A session with school students and parents to give their perspective and were excellent ambassadors for the University.
The young people were able to try suturing and basic life support, and also use some of the equipment developed by the British Armed Forces for managing catastrophic haemorrhage. They had to put some of those skills to the test when they met SIM Man and learned how to assess and manage a patient who is acutely unwell.
A practical anatomy workshop based around case histories gave students a real insight into how they might learn at medical school. They were taught how to use stethoscopes to listen for heart and lung sounds and worked out how these related to the anatomy they were looking at on models.
The event was supported by the Critical Care Programme at University Hospital Southampton who ran a thrilling trauma simulation, based around a child actor who had severe burns. Students were then able to explore some of the equipment they had seen in the simulation when they tried intubation on models. Students were also extremely privileged to be taken on a tour of the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit and Emergency Department.
The Keynote Speaker was Surgeon, Mr Tim Underwood. Tim captivated students with the description of his day-to-day work, and inspired them with videos and pictures of the pioneering work he does in cancer treatment and research.
The Students finished the programme by presenting some of their learning and experience to their parents who stayed to attend a talk from the Medical Admissions team on applying for Medical School.
Dr. Hannah Davey, LifeLab Teaching Fellow commented “It was clear that the students found the whole experience to be exciting and engaging. We hope that we have inspired some fantastic future Doctors!”
Indeed it appears the youngsters were inspired with comments from them including: ‘Medical students were really helpful and made it fun!’, ‘Really friendly and very helpful in deciding whether to pursue a career in medicine’, ‘(Suturing was a) very good experience and it's great that young people are given these kinds of opportunities’.
Furthermore, Parents were impressed, with one commenting: ‘It was particularly valuable just to sample hospital life, see the range of opportunities and feel the enthusiasm of those working in the profession. You have really helped to cement his ambition.’
LifeLab is a science education intervention designed to change young people’s attitudes and behaviour towards their own health, and the health of their future children, through a hands-on, science-oriented teaching package.
Our secondary aim is to enthuse young people about science and as part of this aim we run a Summer School for students in Years 8-10 who are thinking of studying medicine.