Teenagers from across the South have experienced life as doctors on the hospital frontlines as part of a medical summer school at the University of Southampton.
More than 40 pupils from 25 schools in Hampshire and Dorset took part in the programme, organised by the University’s LifeLab, to encourage a new generation of healthcare professionals.
The two-day school was held at University Hospital Southampton NHS FT, where pupils took part in clinical skills sessions, including venesection, cannulation, suturing, blood pressure and urine testing.
They experienced anatomy teaching in labs to understand how to treat patients and had a tour of the Acute Medical Unit and the NIHR Southampton Clinical Research Facility at Southampton General Hospital. The students also quizzed current medical students about what it’s like to study medicine and heard from Dr Laura Croucher, Paediatric Registrar in Dorset about working in the NHS.
Kate Bartlett, Developing Talent Lead for LifeLab, said: “We were delighted to see so many pupils from variety of schools across the area take part in our medical summer school. There is a shortage of clinical staff across our country, so it is vital to give young people valuable experience of what a role in healthcare could be like.”
After the course, parent Leona Birchenough, said the course had helped her daughter Paige decide on a career in medicine adding: “[there was] so much good information for her. It’s a brilliant course.”
LifeLab is a unique research-based educational programme that empowers children and young people to understand the science behind their health, and to inform the choices they make for their own lives – for their health now, in the future, and for their future families. It is a collaboration between the University of Southampton, NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre and University Hospital Southampton. More than 15,000 students have visited the facility at Southampton General Hospital from over 100 schools.
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