Operation Health Care

The St. Louis Health Care Partners recently sponsored “Operation Health Care” at the St. Louis Science Center, and co-workers from St. John’s Mercy Health Care helped introduce students to several different aspects of modern health care.

The St. Louis Health Care Partners is a group composed of representatives from area hospitals, schools, and The St. Louis Metropolitan Health Care Council, an arm of the Missouri Hospital Association.

This event, held October 23-25, was open to ninth graders from schools throughout the St. Louis area. More than 500 students attended the event, where they walked through the “Life Cycle of a Patient.” Booths were set up in stages from NICU/Nursery, Pediatrics, Adult Medicine, Geriatrics and Trauma. Hands-on activities for the students included:

• “performing surgery”
• placing a pulse oximetry monitor on another student
• taking vital signs
• examination of lung tissue, both diseased and healthy
• wheelchair obstacle course
• geriatric chair aerobics.

At the end of the day, students saw a mock car accident. The students then observed a person being “treated” on the scene by paramedics, in the ER by nurses and doctors, and finally in the ICU.

St. John's Mercy Health Care co-workers volunteered to help make Operation Health Care a success.