Twenty, 7th and 8th grade students from Crawford Long Middle School were “scrubbed” and ready for “surgery” as they participated in the eMergent STEM Scholars Program at Northside Hospital Healthcare System in conjunction with NeuroNexus, LLC.
The goal of this partnership was to expose students to the various aspects of surgical medicine and encourage them to pursue medical/healthcare related careers. Mentors for this program included a neurosurgeon, neuro monitoring technician, nurse, scrub tech, sales representative, physician’s assistant, x-ray technician, physician’s assistant of anesthesia, blood perfusionist, anesthesiologist, general surgeon, and surgical assistant.
Throughout the week students were exposed to the various job opportunities in surgical medicine through classroom sessions, lectures from medical professionals and hands-on experiences.
“It is my goal to expose students to wonderful and exciting learning experiences that they wouldn’t normally get a chance to be involved in,” said Science Instruction Coach, Tiarra Moore. Hopefully, through encounters like this students will be more excited about school, learning, and maybe even choose a science related career.”
“I absolutely loved the operating room experience,” said Xiyanna Larken, 7th Grade. “It solidified my desire to become a Physicians Assistant and showed me the different tools and equipment that I would be using once I get into that profession.”
After the mock operation room experience, students were able to tour the different departments of the hospital, including the biomedical and radiology departments. Students were able to learn about the technology used as well as the variety of positions that are involved in different medical situations. 
Moore explained that they plan on giving more students the opportunity to participate in the future. She said next year they plan to have students rotate through the program twice during the school year. One group will participate in the fall and another group will participate in the spring.
