The following was originally published by The Leader-Herald.
TOWN OF JOHNSTOWN — SUNY Fulton-Montgomery Community College (FMCC) invited high school students to campus Friday to explore career opportunities.
The college partnered with CFES Brilliant Pathways, a nonprofit organization helping underserved K-12 students from rural communities, to showcase different programs available at FMCC, including nursing, business, human services and media arts. Between 60 to 75 rising high school juniors and seniors visited campus for academic demonstrations and a tour.
The Nursing Simulation Lab was a highlight, with life-like mannequins that have a pulse, can yell and even blink.
Vera Korol, a student from Owen D. Young Central School District in Herkimer County, said she enjoyed visiting the lab. She plans to become a dermatologist.
The lab “was bougie, I liked it,” she said. “The mannequins creeped me out, though. If it blinked, I don’t think I would’ve liked that.”
The presentation was facilitated by graduating FMCC nursing students Lorena Trumbull, Persephone Morrison and Megan VanNostrand. Trumbull plans on taking a nursing position at St. Mary’s Hospital in Amsterdam, and Morrison and VanNostrand plan on taking positions at Nathan Littauer Hospital in Gloversville after graduation.
“We’re excited to encourage younger students to join health care, let them know the opportunities that are here and show them what this college itself offers students,” Morrison said. “I feel like a lot of people don’t really realize all the opportunities and how much this lab has grown to help students.”
FMCC offers an eight-week certified nursing assistant program, a two-year registered nurse program, a phlebotomy program and a radiologic technology program.
Students learn how to inject medications, handle instruments and even respond to crashing patients using practice dummies that are lying in hospital beds in the lab. The simulation lab also has a section for students to provide infant care.
“Talking to someone who’s also a student, I think, is especially important because they’re talking to someone more on their peer level than a teacher or an administrator,” said FMCC Associate Dean of Enrollment Management John Ramoska. “I think that really garners that enthusiasm and nurtures that enthusiasm to get them to pursue that path.”
The nursing students said the lab has prepared them for their careers.
Instructors “can make the patient have a heart attack,” VanNostrand said. “They can make the patient be in some really critical states. We’re in the real world. If you were to be a new graduate nurse, you’re not really prepared to deal with all of that critical stuff. School does help, but having these mannequins do all these critical things really helps prepare you for the real world, and what things that you can stumble across as a nurse, because you never know.”
FMCC lab assistant Cheryl Brennan was a nurse for 50 years before retiring. She said the lab is a vital asset to preparing future nurses.
“I consider myself fortunate that I went to a nursing school, which doesn’t even exist anymore,” she said. “There were three-year programs, so you worked as you went. I worked three days in a hospital, so that was a pretty good experience. But nurses that go to four-year programs, which most do today, don’t come out with too much nursing experience. The intelligence is there, but the practical isn’t.”
Brennan said she hopes the visiting high school students were inspired by the presentation.
“I’m hoping that they’ll want to be nurses,” she said. “You see that they have the opportunities where they can have hands-on training and everything, and hopefully we’ll get some nurses out of it.”