At the Mini Medical School summer academy, checking a patient’s pulse, stitching wounds, performing ultrasounds and dissections were the equivalent of swimming, horseback riding and crafts at ordinary summer camps.
But these campers weren’t complaining.
“I got to ultrasound an eye, which I didn’t even know you could do,” said Kate Mock, a high school junior from Statesboro, Ga. “It’s just so cool. It’s like you’re in a real hospital even though you’re not.”
More than 200 campers, between 11 and 18, participated in the Mini Medical School camp, which was offered on the Augusta University-UGA Medical Partnership campus for the first time this year. Also a first: camp instructors were first-year medical students on the Health Sciences Campus in Athens, where students in the medical partnership program take classes.
The team of five medical students designed the camp curriculum and prepared activities for the students, modeling the program after their own med school experiences.
“We asked ourselves, ‘what did we take away from our first year in medical school that we want the students to get from this?’,” said Shivani Patel, who coordinated the Mini Medical School, one of 40-plus different summer experiences available through the UGA Center for Continuing Education’s Summer Academy at UGA (SAUGA). “It was definitely a team effort because each of us took on an organ system and made activities around that organ system.”
In the mock emergency room, eighth grade student James Zhang used two fingers to find the pulse of his patient, a mannequin simulation of a real human.
“Feeling the pulse in the mannequin was so cool, but so weird,” said Zhang, from Cumming, Ga. “It felt so real, like I was an actual doctor.”
After two years of altered summer camp offerings, the Georgia Center was able to return to usual camp operations, hosting day and overnight camps for students.
Summer Academy reached pre-pandemic numbers this year, offering 59 overnight and day educational camps and hosting nearly 1,050 students compared to 58 camps and 1,018 students in 2019.
“The closer we got to spring we saw numbers spike and camps fill,” said Jessica Kallay, director of youth programs for the Georgia Center. “I think that kids and parents were really ready to embrace summer plans, summer camps and get involved again.”
The camp participants were split into groups of eight to ten students and paired with an instructor who taught them clinical skills. Whether they were dissecting a sheep’s brain or re-assembling a human skeleton model, the students were able to use what they learned about each organ system in daily camp activities.
“It’s been great. There are more dissections, which is really fun because that’s just something you can’t do at home,” said Mock, who participated in Mini Medical School over Zoom last summer.
At the end of the week, the groups of campers were given a mock emergency room patient—a simulation mannequin they had to examine and then use their findings to determine a care plan.
“It was so cool to see them connect the dots throughout the week,” said Patel. “Just seeing them explore reminded me and other instructors of how exciting it was for us to do some things for the first time.”
In addition to exploring medical careers, Summer Academy camps provided opportunities for students to experience other career fields like engineering, fashion design and marine biology.
In the Ocean Discovery camp, students headed out into the field to learn how inland streams impact the ocean.
For Mia Souza, a freshman from Oconee County, the Ocean Discovery camp helped her narrow her career choices.
“I want to be a marine biologist or a dentist, so this camp is helping me decide which I prefer,” said Souza.
Participating students not only came from the Athens area, like Souza, but from across Georgia and even other states, benefitting from the overnight camp option for Summer Academy.
Over 600 students participated in overnight camps this year, nearly 58 percent of camp registrations.
“I think it’s great that the program offers that opportunity for every one of our camps and doesn’t limit or exclude a child because of where they live,” said Kallay.
