Biomed Day Gives Medina, Buckeye & Brunswick Students Hands-On Look at Medical Careers

Students of Medina High School, Buckeye High School and Brunswick High School received real-life lessons from biomedicine professionals when more than 20 local organizations set up tables in the Medina High School gymnasium for Biomed Day on Nov. 19. The event was part of an initiative by Project Lead the Way, a nonprofit organization committed to equipping students with knowledge, skills and confidence to succeed.

“Today’s goal is to bring as many biomedical professionals to the students so they can go around and interact,” biomedical science teacher Victoria Medlock explained. “Each table is going to have an interactive activity or a demonstration where the kids can ask questions, participate in the activities, just gain as much information as possible from the professionals that are in the field.”

Students visited exhibitors one school at a time and learned about biomedical careers from doctors, nurses, biomedical engineers, paramedics and others. Representatives from MetroHealth, Cleveland Clinic, the University of Akron, Lorain County Community College, Akron Children’s Hospital and additional organizations participated.

Kelly DiGiacinto was one of three exhibitors from MetroHealth Metro Life Flight.

“We are demonstrating on real-life lungs what it looks like when someone has a breathing tube in,” she explained. “We have a set of lungs that are on a ventilator. And then we have a set of lungs that are being manually ventilated. We discussed with the students the anatomy, the mouth and chest.”

DiGiacinto and her colleagues also discussed the skills they use to help patients in respiratory distress and talked with students about nursing career paths.

Another exhibitor was W.C. Vance, assistant director of Cleveland State University’s Fenn Academy and dean of the university’s College of Engineering.

“I brought with me an artificial hip, an artificial knee, a medical training vest called a HERT Vest, which helps physicians and EMTs practice their emergency procedures better, and also a bioelectronic sensor called the SweatID, which was built in our engineering school by one of our professors,” he said.

Representatives from the Medina County Career Center shared information about its biomedicine and nursing courses. Medlock said she credits MCCC for bringing Project Lead the Way to Medina High School.

“Currently, we have our biomedical science program up here at the high school,” she said. “All of this is possible because of our career center, but our goal with it is more of a project-based learning program where the students get to put themselves in the scenarios of medical professionals, and they’ll work through the curriculum acting as those professionals.”

Medlock said she hopes Biomed Day helped students gain curiosity about biomedicine and related careers.

“I want them to just have fun and see how this connects to what we are doing within the classroom but also give them opportunities to speak with people that can help them in the future make those connections with someone that might be in a field that they’re interested in pursuing,” she said.