-Students in the medical program go on clinicals to gain valuable expireince

Car accidents, surgeries, and nuclear medicine: some of the things students see on clinicals.

Clinicals are where medical students go to gain experience in the medical field. The students go to many different places, they could go to the hospital or even ride along on a fire truck. Some see many different exciting things on these trips or some could be just your average day at the hospital.

Students go on these clinicals throughout the year. Juniors are required to go on three clinicals during their time, that year. Seniors in Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) class also go on clinicals, but theirs is more in depth with the class. The students get to a hands on level, where they can interact with patients.

The students choose where they want to go for their clinicals. They pick from a list of places and dates. Dunedin Mease Hospital is a popular place for students to have their clinicals done. They have an operating room and a nuclear medicine area.

“I’ll be going on 3 clinicals this year, probably twice to Dunedin Mease,” junior MJ Grant said. “I’m pretty excited to go I think the operating room will be nice,” Grant said. “I expect to see a few different types of surgeries, maybe some emergency room stuff I guess,” Grant said.

Others who went on the fire truck clinicals would highly recommend it because of the unpredictability. “It was really fun, saw lots of things,” senior Brian Flanagan said. “There was a few car accidents, being on the scene was a really cool experience,” Flanagan said.

It’s definitely a unique experience to go on any clinical nowadays. Mrs. Miller and Ms. Ungs will put together some opportunities for students, or they can go on their own and set up a clinical by themselves.

“I went to a vet’s office near my house, I had to go to them and set up the appointments and stuff by myself,” senior Max Gerber said. “It was actually pretty challenging, I called a few times and left messages but they never called back, so I just went in and made an appointment,” Gerber said. “The vet worked on a few different routine checkups, there wasn’t much action that day,” Gerber said.

Clinicals are an exciting experience to those who want to later go into the medical field. It gives you valuable information about careers that some students possibly want to go into for a full time career.