Hoover, Spain Park health science academies to combine at RC3

More than 300 students from Hoover and Spain Park high schools are signed up for the Health Science Academy at the Riverchase Career Connection Center, which opens for the first time with the start of school on Aug. 8.

It will be the largest of the five academies the school will have during its first year, but both Hoover and Spain Park had existing health science academies at their respective campuses in previous years.

Now, they will come together at the Riverchase campus, known as RC3, for half of each school day. Students will take their health science courses, as well as English and math classes, while there, and the English and math classes will include lessons that can be applied in the health science field.

Tanya Kendrick, who served as director of the Health Science Academy at Hoover, will be the lead health science teacher at RC3.

She has a nursing background and there also will be another nurse, an occupational therapist and athletic trainer as instructional staff at the school, she said. She plans to invite other professionals, such as cardiologists and X-ray technicians, as guest teachers, she said.

The Health Science Academy is designed to begin preparing students for a variety of jobs in the medical field, Kendrick said. Most people think about being doctors or nurses, but “there are so many other jobs out there in the health care field,” including pharmacists, emergency medical technicians, respiratory therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists and X-ray technicians, she said. And not all of them involve “blood and guts,” she said.

The Health Science Academy will have three major tracks: emergency services, pharmacy and therapeutics, which will focus on chronic medical issues such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes and high blood pressure, Kendrick said.

In the emergency services track, students will learn how to handle heart attacks, asthma problems and anaphylactic shock, and they’ll learn how to assess patients to determine which injuries or illnesses are most critical and need treatment first, she said.

The Hoover Fire Department will be assisting with the emergency medical services track, she said.

Part of RC3 will be set up like an emergency room, with four patient rooms and a nursing station in the middle. The school has expensive mannequins that simulate patients with medical conditions. The mannequins can yell, scream, cough and show blood pressure, and instructors can change the mannequins’ vital signs to mimic certain conditions, she said.

Instructors will monitor students behind a two-way mirror to see how they perform in treating the patients, Kendrick said. “If you’re going to mess up, this is where you want to mess up,” instead of with a live patient, she said.

The school also will have an ambulance simulator to give students experience working with “patients” in the back of an ambulance.

The academy is open to grades 10-12 and during their senior year, students will have an opportunity to do an internship at a hospital or doctor’s office and do job shadowing to get a better picture of what the job is really like, Kendrick said.

Students will be able to earn credentials for basic life support and patient care technicians, she said. The goal is to have them both ready for entry-level medical jobs straight out of high school and prepared for college if they want to further their education, she said. Many students work to help pay their way through school.

Jefferson State Community College’s EMT program also will offer a dual enrollment course at RC3, with Jeff State instructors.

The equipment at the Health Science Academy costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the experience students get should help them be better prepared than most students entering college, Kendrick said. Many going into health fields have never even touched a stethoscope when they start college, she said.

Kayla Jemison, who is entering her junior year at Hoover High, is among those who signed up for the academy. She said she likes the idea of helping people have a healthy life.

“I want to be a nurse when I grow up,” Jemison said. “This is something I’ve wanted to do since I was little. Now that I’m able to do this, it’s amazing.”