Boy Scouts discover more men choose nursing careers
The second floor nursing lab at Harper College turned into a mock triage center Saturday as area Boy Scouts rotated through different emergency situations in pursuit of their first aid merit badge.
What made this hands-on event different from some were the adults moderating each station. They weren't Scout leaders but nursing students. Make that male nursing students.
Scouts came from troops in Barrington, Algonquin, Crystal Lake, Park Ridge and Grayslake.
But there was more going on during the morning session than learning to set broken bones and treat heat stroke.
"We realized many young men make judgments early on about acceptable careers," said nursing professor Kate Kniest. "By providing male nurse role models, we hope to prevent some of the preconceived notions."
Currently, fewer than 6 percent of the nurses in the country are male, according to statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health.
At Harper, where the nursing department prepares students to earn an applied associate degree in nursing and sit for their registered nurse license, men this year make up nearly 10 percent of the class, the most ever.
Scouts said they enjoyed the variety of stations they got to tackle - and working with the nursing students.
"I like all the hands-on experience and the fact that they're teaching every day first aid skills," said David Bryant, 14, of Grayslake. "I've thought about areas I can go into where I can help people; I guess nursing could be one of them."
Another Scout, 12-year old Joseph Valentino, thought he had his career plans all mapped out, but working with the nurses gave him more choices to consider.
"Ever since I was 6, I've wanted to be a heart surgeon," Valentino of North Barrington said.
Harper's fourth annual First Aid Merit Badge Day immersed Scouts in the state-of-the-art nursing lab, with its high fidelity mannequins. Some had a pulse and heartbeat, while others even squirted blood.
Scouts met second-year nursing students, including Kevin Dobbins and James Choi, who both plan to pursue careers in critical care. At their station, they demonstrated setting a potential broken or sprained ankle until emergency personnel could arrive.
Using a twig as a brace, they carefully wrapped the injured limb, before Scouts tried their hand at it. At the end, they wrapped up their presentation by describing how they became interested in nursing as a profession.
Choi said he liked the variety of clinical settings nursing offered, while Dobbins, who started out as a pre-med major, said he chose nursing for the ability to treat and educate patients.
"That's what inspired me to go into medicine in the first place," Dobbins said, "to help people."
Working at another station was nursing student Ken Endler, a former firefighter and paramedic in Carpentersville, who wanted to take his medical training to the next level.
He described first aid care for burns, such as those found around a campfire or at home from boiling water. He grabbed the Scouts' attention when he brought up some of the real life cases he had responded to as a paramedic.