When she was in high school, Elizabeth Oyeyemi attended a weeklong camp at Clayton State University to get a closer look at the nursing profession.
“My heath care occupations teacher had heard about it and knew I was interested in nursing. She thought this would be a good hands-on experience to see if nursing was really what I wanted,” she said.
This summer Oyeyemi was back at the same nursing camp as a volunteer instructor. A rising senior in the nursing program at Clayton State, she’s interested in working in an emergency room or as a flight nurse after she graduates.
“Being back at the camp brought back a lot of memories. I remembered when I was learning some of those skills for the first time,” she said. “I was a floater on skills day, helping wherever students needed help as they learned to dress wounds, start IVs and give medications. One student was having a hard time getting a blood pressure (reading), so I let her practice on me. It was really cool to see young people with so much enthusiasm about nursing.”
Students asked Oyeyemi about Clayton State’s program and how hard it was to get in. She advised them to study hard, use all the resources available and ask for help because getting into and staying in nursing school is tough, but worth it.
Later, she met a camper at a Clayton State freshman orientation session and agreed to mentor her.
“I love working with young people. My passion is to help find and achieve their dreams,” Oyeyemi said. “If someone is interested in nursing, it really helps to talk to someone who is in nursing school or working in the field to learn what it is really like.
“I wish there were more opportunities like this camp for young people.”
The Clayton State School of Nursing launched its Careers Into Nursing Camp for high school students six years ago with a Health Resources and Services Administration work force diversity grant. Up to 60 students participate in two weeklong day camps.
“We started offering the free camps to minority or (prospective) first-generation college students interested in a nursing career. The profession needs to recruit more minority nurses,” said Katrina Barnes, assistant nursing professor and laboratory coordinator at Clayton State.
The first grant ran for three years and the nursing department secured a second one to continue the program for another three years. By the second round of funding, the faculty had done some research and realized that students began thinking about careers earlier, so they opened the camp to middle school students and to anyone with an interest in a health care profession.
“I love working with these young people, to see their enthusiasm and how they grow through the week,” Barnes said. “At first, they say they want to be neurosurgeons, but by the end of the week more are talking about nursing, and that’s good. Our aim is to give a good introduction to the profession.”
The first day of camp, faculty members and nursing students talk about the things nurses do. The campers also learn about college life and take an assessment test to see how they learn best. The campers spend the second day in the nursing skills lab, trying their hand at administering shots, taking vital signs and starting IV lines.
“That’s when the students begin to loosen up and talk to one another and have fun,” Barnes said.
Campers spend a day at Grady Memorial Hospital, where the older students shadow nurses and the younger ones take a tour. They spend a day learning how to perform CPR and earning certification.
“You can talk about nursing all you want, but you really gain a lot of insight when you start learning some of the skills,” said Madison McNeill, who graduated last May from Paragon Academy in Conyers. “I took an anatomy and physiology class in my junior year and discovered I had an interest. I began looking at professions where I could pursue that interest.”
A friend at church suggested the nursing camp.
“It was a great way to get your foot in the door and see what nursing is all about. I especially liked getting to shadow a nurse at Grady to see what she did every day,” McNeill said. “The camp reinforced my plans and made me more comfortable about pursuing nursing.”
This month , McNeill will start classes at Kennesaw State University, a college she selected because of its nursing program. “I’m dedicated to working hard and I hope that I’ll be accepted into the nursing program when the time comes.”
The camp showed McNeill the wide range of nursing jobs.
“The versatility is one of the reasons I decided on nursing,” she said. “I want to help people, but I want my job to be fun, too. With nursing, it sounds like you never have to be bored. There’s always something else you can do.”
