Youth Programs Let Students Try Out Careers

For Josh Laurin, a Two Rivers High School senior, and Amy Pfeffer, a Lincoln senior, their youth apprenticeships have enabled them to observe the nursing profession up close and personal.

“I’ve liked the youth apprenticeship program because I’ve floated around to different departments … gotten a feel of how surgery works, the ICU, the emergency room,” said Laurin. “You can see how everyone works together as a team to help patients recover.”

Laurin and Pfeffer both became certified nursing assistants, a pre-requisite to getting hired by Aurora. Laurin also is continuing paramedic training at Lakeshore Technical College and hopes to someday be a registered nurse in an emergency room.

Pfeffer will enroll at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota this fall to pursue a bachelor’s degree in nursing, with a long-term goal of becoming a nurse practitioner, which would require several more years of post-graduate study.

“Seeing all the departments with their unique jobs, (youth apprenticeship) has just been a really excellent experience,” Pfeffer said.

There have been challenges. “The first time I saw someone die, it was a little hard,” Laurin said. Pfeffer grew close to an 85-year-old woman — “but younger in spirit” — who was losing her fight against cancer and was discharged to hospice.

Sam Klinkner, an ICU nurse at Aurora, has served as a mentor to the apprentices.

“Developing critical thinking skills is very important,” Klinkner said. “Nurses need to be caring, somewhat outgoing and not afraid to interact with the other staff, as well as patients from the three-year-old with leukemia to the 90-year-old granny and her family members.”

As CNAs, Laurin and Pfeffer take vital signs, help with transport, collect body fluid specimens, assist RNs with daily care of patients including bathing, repositioning and feeding.

“Nurses have to be flexible and adapt to whatever situation is developing,” said Mary Greeneway, clinical education coordinator for Aurora Medical Center. “Nurses need to re-prioritize and decide what really needs to be done.”

Greeneway said high school students considering a health care career need to take classes in biology, chemistry, anatomy and physiology. They will take advanced courses in these fields in college.

A challenge? Yes, but one youth apprentices, like Storms, voluntarily take on. She was wearing a white silicone bracelet with the word “HEART” stamped on it.

“I also have a red one, ‘CONFIDENCE,’ and a blue one, ‘DESIRE,’” Storms said. “That’s my personal outlook on life.”

The full article can be found here.