Teens’ health camp connects students with medical fields

The Glob­al Ca­reer In­sti­tute’s Teens’ Health East­er Camp re­turned this year, plac­ing stu­dents aged 13 to 17 in health­care set­tings over five days.

Or­gan­is­ers said the pro­gramme in­clud­ed ses­sions across twelve ar­eas, in­clud­ing CPR and emer­gency care, sports med­i­cine, vet­eri­nary med­i­cine, ob­stet­rics and gy­nae­col­o­gy, den­tistry, clin­i­cal phle­boto­my, ENT, or­thopaedics, ra­di­ol­o­gy and mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gy.

Each ses­sion was led by pro­fes­sion­als work­ing in those fields.

Stu­dents ro­tat­ed through ses­sions and worked with equip­ment, pro­ce­dures and prac­ti­tion­ers.

Or­gan­is­ers said the pro­gramme al­lowed stu­dents to re­ceive in­for­ma­tion on health­care work and train­ing re­quire­ments.

GCI part­nered with Gulf View Med­ical Cen­tre, which pro­vid­ed fa­cil­i­ty ac­cess and a tour that in­clud­ed the op­er­at­ing the­atre, lab­o­ra­to­ries and imag­ing de­part­ments.

Val­ue Op­ti­cal al­so sup­port­ed the pro­gramme, pro­vid­ing an op­tometrist and an oph­thal­mol­o­gist, along with eye test­ing and ses­sions in that field.

Or­gan­is­ers said med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed along­side clin­i­cal du­ties.

They said the pro­gramme is in­tend­ed to al­low stu­dents to as­sess in­ter­est in health­care fields.

A rep­re­sen­ta­tive said the ses­sions in­clud­ed CPR train­ing, ex­po­sure to equip­ment and dis­cus­sions on train­ing path­ways.

Or­gan­is­ers said the pro­gramme does not di­rect stu­dents to a spe­cif­ic ca­reer path but pro­vides in­for­ma­tion for de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

A state­ment said stu­dents may pur­sue clin­i­cal roles, health ad­min­is­tra­tion, med­ical tech­nol­o­gy or al­lied health fields.

It said the ap­proach is based on pro­vid­ing ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion and ex­po­sure to health­care en­vi­ron­ments.

Or­gan­is­ers said Trinidad and To­ba­go has short­ages in health­care fields.

They said da­ta on work­force de­vel­op­ment iden­ti­fies ear­ly ex­po­sure at the sec­ondary school lev­el as a method to ad­dress gaps.

The pro­gramme is struc­tured with part­ners, prac­ti­tion­ers and sched­uled ses­sions.

Or­gan­is­ers said ap­pli­ca­tions for the 2027 pro­gramme will open at a lat­er date.

They al­so in­vit­ed health­care in­sti­tu­tions and prac­ti­tion­ers to par­tic­i­pate through fa­cil­i­ty ac­cess, in­struc­tion and ser­vices.