Allied Health Sciences gives students hands-on experiences with field trips

For the last three years, the College of Allied Health Sciences has welcomed students of various ages to Augusta University to get an introduction to the campus, as well as provide opportunities to learn about the different career paths in health care.

Judith Stallings, EdD, associate dean of Academic Affairs in CAHS and team facilitator for the field trips, said Grovetown High School was the first school to participate in the spring of 2022, and they have returned each year.

“As we go outside of the university, we try to verbalize all that we have to offer on campus,” Stallings said. “We use PowerPoints with pictures to try to show and tell what is available within CAHS. However, the students don’t know what is here until they come to campus and meet with our students and play around with the equipment.”

Stallings said this approach allows students to imagine themselves as a current AU student. She also said, as a first-generation student herself, she lacked exposure to certain opportunities, which are important for all children.

“Imagery is so important, and we know that the young kids dream a lot,” she said. “Why not have them to dream that they could be a radiation therapist, a clinical laboratory scientist, a dental hygienist and so forth? It also allows them to see that health care is not scary and for them not to be afraid of working in any area of health care.”

The college has been purposeful in finding initiatives that reach out to school-aged children to bring them to campus, while still working on those designed opportunities to go outside of the university to tell others of the college’s offerings.

“In my 12 years in the dean’s office, CAHS has had a two-prong recruiting strategy that included digital marketing and participation in recruitment fairs in and around Georgia and South Carolina,” said CAHS Dean Lester Pretlow, PhD. “We have never had the bandwidth to recruit students in their formative years of high school and middle school. These field trips complete our tripartite mission of reaching out and making potential students at all levels aware of the health science professions. I believe strongly that these efforts will help students make decisions that will impact the future of health in Georgia.”

First-class, first-hand experiences

During the last year, AU’s Office of Institutional Access, Success, and Belonging has collaborated with CAHS by providing escort support, administering surveys and developing a way to track students’ involvement.

The field trips have focused primarily on high school students, although CAHS has scheduled elementary and middle school groups to visit the campus. Stallings said they have also opened the opportunities to colleges, as well.

On most field trips, students explore some of the college’s programs including radiation therapy, clinical laboratory sciences, respiratory therapy and nuclear medicine technology. After a simulation tour with dental hygiene, students participate in activities with occupational and physical therapy, physician assistants and the speech-language pathologist professors.

Kaili Williams, a fourth-year undergraduate student studying nuclear medicine technology, has volunteered to demonstrate equipment on field trips. She said her class size right now is small, so it’s been nice to be able to let more people know about nuclear medicine.

She also noted that she didn’t have these opportunities when she was in high school or when she was doing her prerequisites. She did have the opportunity to job shadow but thinks it’s great for students to come and get to know about all of the college’s different programs.

“This means a lot to me. I’m also a part of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Student Task Force, and we’re all about trying to get the message out and let more people know about nuclear medicine,” Williams said. “This is just an extension of that, and it’s really nice.”

Positive feedback

Stallings thinks when students hear the words “field trip,” they get excited and might think to themselves, “It’s going to be all fun.” She said, when learning is fun, students tend to remember it more.

In early February, 20 Strom Thurmond high schoolers and 12 Aiken County counselors and career specialists visited. 

Megan Johnson, the career specialist at Strom Thurmond High School, researched potential field trips and discovered what CAHS had to offer. She was impressed with the faculty and students who took time to meet with the students and provided insight into the programs.

“There are so many programs under one roof here that the students can see,” Johnson said. “The students are hands-on learners. Instead of listening to a lecture all day, they explained to us that, yes, there are some lectures involved where you learn some background information, but the clinical part is more hands-on, and that’s what our students really need. I think it’s a great opportunity for anybody who has a chance to come here and learn.”

Johnson said the students are part of the health science program at Strom Thurmond High School Career and Technology Center, and all have a goal to do something in health care.

“It’s our job to give those students the opportunity to see what’s out there,” she said. “To me, Augusta University is another place that we can offer to our students. It’s our job as counselors and teachers to provide those opportunities for them.”

Pamela Taylor is a new counselor at Ridge Spring-Monetta High School. She said field trips like these are valuable for the students as career exploration.

“They can really begin to fine-tune, especially with the wide variety of experiences that AU is giving them today, where their heart brings them and where their passion brings them,” Taylor said.

Taylor noted that Aiken County students should be excited about an opportunity like this because, “it is within arm’s reach,” and gives them a chance to see information go from the textbook to real-life situations where they can touch and manipulate with their hands while having conversations with professionals.

“AU is not just a neighbor; you’re actually a part of our community as we are a part of your community,” she said. “I think that AU providing this opportunity will go a long way in them remembering AU favorably.”