& so much more
A bi-monthly podcast where we share the stories of our Caregivers, patients and community.
& so much more
Building the Future of Healthcare by Educating the Next Generation
Join us as we explore how Centra is addressing critical healthcare shortages by engaging local students through innovative educational programs. Our guests share how local healthcare camps provide students with exposure to a multitude of career options in medicine.
This episode unpacks the role of local healthcare educators who foster student connections with real-world experiences, building excitement for various healthcare roles. As listeners, you'll learn why it's essential to cultivate this interest early and understand the pathways available for students eager to enter the field. Through compelling personal stories, our hosts and guests discuss how these initiatives not only fill imminent workforce gaps but also enhance the quality of healthcare in local communities.
For more content from Centra Health check us out on the following channels.
YouTube
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Hi and welcome to, and so Much More. I am your host, cammie Smith, and I am here with two wonderful ladies. We have Cara Brooke, who is a hospice nurse, and then we have Brittney, who is our Director of Student Affairs, and I'm going to have them explain and describe what it is they do at Centra and what brought them here in just a moment. Them here in just a moment, but just to set the stage. We are going to be talking about something that we've been leaning into since the beginning of this year, and it is, as we're looking at things like physician shortages, nursing shortages and just like the healthcare industry needing to fill some of these roles to provide care.
Cami Smith:What is Centra doing to educate the next generation and to introduce, like, what a career in healthcare looks like? And that is, yes, because we need to educate the next generation, but also because, like, where better to start to kind of build a fire and an excitement about healthcare than in your own community, because then you have this homegrown care that is coming back and it's a really, really beautiful thing, and so that's kind of what we're going to be talking about today, but first we can start with you, Cara. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about what you do, and what your role is.
Cara Brooke Peade:So I am considered a case manager with Central Hospice, and so not only am I taking care of the patients in the home, I'm also managing their medications, their supplies and also working with all of the disciplines, which include social work, chaplain and, of course, the providers and nurse practitioners. So I work Monday through Friday and I see, you know, I have a caseload of patients that I see every single day and, yeah, I love it, it's been great.
Cami Smith:That is so much more than I think I was expecting you to describe. You do a lot.
Cara Brooke Peade:Yeah, yeah, it's a lot, but, um, I love it. I don't know it's. You make connections with patients that you normally wouldn't get when you work inpatient. You know it's like, hey, I'm going to be your nurse today and you might be gone the next day. But, when you're working in the home. I'm the face you're going to see every single week that I'm there. So, yeah, it's been great. You kind of become their community.
Cami Smith:Yeah, that's so cool. Okay, and Brittney what about you?
Brittney Aagaard:Yes, so I'm Brittany Agard. I'm, as Kami said, the Director of Student Affairs and I've been with Centra for eight years now and I love my role. I get to work with students and do anything related to education throughout Centra, so we have an amazing team that handles all kinds of students that come through Centra. We do scheduling, onboarding, we host internships throughout the year and we do a lot of community work as well. So, as you said, kind of getting connected with our local community, my role is really to expose students to Centra and find opportunities to bring them in. So I love that. A lot of great work.
Cami Smith:So some of you who have been listening, you may have heard the term omesa and and you know when I started working here. First of all, there are so many acronyms in the healthcare industry.
Brittney Aagaard:So it's a lot to learn.
Cami Smith:But OMSSA is not one you hear super often. So Office of Medical Education Student Affairs.
Cami Smith:Is that correct? You got it Okay, very good so.
Cami Smith:so what types of students do you interact?
Brittney Aagaard:with yes, so we have really from the youngest generation that we can bring in to the oldest, that are pursuing education. So we have, of course, you know, our middle school, high school students that we're bringing in through camps. We do internships for a lot of our high schools, so we do Central Virginia Governor's School STEM Academy and the Beacon of Hope that we've partnered with, so we offer internships throughout the hospital for them. And then we're also working with allied health professional students so we're bringing them in to do their clinicals, again onboarding. And then we also have some partnerships, close partnerships with our University of Lynchburg PA program and Lucon Medical School, and so we are again handling most of their rotations, getting them scheduled with our physicians and APPs and bringing them in, you know, to be a part of the healthcare team and do their clinicals.
Cami Smith:So yeah, you know what's crazy is? I don't think the average person would think Centra was like a teaching hospital and I mean I'm not going to go out there and declare us as, yes, this is what we are. But in my experience there is so much and I think of. So. I've had two babies over at Virginia Baptist and I had a student in the room for both and they were wonderful. They were a part of the care team. It's not just this, you know person standing in the corner taking furious notes, scared to death. They are so good and so integrated. It was really cool to watch and that was long before I worked here, and so now to hear kind of like the workings of how this is happening, I think that's really cool.
Cami Smith:I mean you probably you get to see a lot of excitement. I imagine, yes, it's's really cool. I mean you probably you get to see a lot of excitement.
Brittney Aagaard:I imagine yes, it's been really great We've created some amazing connections and to be a part of their journey and then watch them come into the healthcare system and start working as providers, and then we ask them to teach students. So it's really a full circle moment when that happens, they become the preceptors and they were students.
Cami Smith:So it's become a community for the ones that have matriculated through Very cool and you know it's so funny, so we keep alluding to this and we're laughing about this inside joke. So Kara actually was one of the students who came to and I don't want to tell your story, so I'll have you tell the details but who came to a camp here at Cintra, and then I don't know how many years ago, but now here you are working at Sentra. So tell me that story from beginning to end.
Cara Brooke Peade:So I saw that Centra had, you know, a healthcare camp and my dad was like, you know, I think this would be really good. You know, it's during the summer, get you out of house, you know and I was like, okay, cool, Um, Didn't really know what I was getting into, obviously because I was like I don't know, but you were getting out of the house. Right.
Cara Brooke Peade:I was getting out of the house. It was like a win-win.
Cara Brooke Peade:But yeah, it was great. When we got there, we even did like a little project with everybody. We got to round on the floors with the doctors and the nurses. It was just great experience. And you got to be with other students who were around my age I think I was 16, maybe 16 or 17. You got to be around others who wanted to work in healthcare. So it was like, oh so I'm not the only loser that wants to be in healthcare, just kidding.
Cara Brooke Peade:But it was nice.
Cara Brooke Peade:It was like oh, there's others who are interested in this. And I remember distinctly two memories.
Cara Brooke Peade:One we got to suture a pig's foot foot and then they took us to the morgue people freaked out and I was like I think this is cool, like so maybe this is how they determine, like, who really wants to do this, and he was like nope, I'm good, so those were like the two things that stuck with me and I was like, wow, I could, I could do this.
Cara Brooke Peade:I liked seeing how the nurses and the doctors worked on the floor, because we went to the icu floors and you have to work together on any floor, but you really need to work together on an ICU floor, so it was really cool wow, yeah, that's incredible.
Cami Smith:And so now you are back. How many years later did you come back so?
Cara Brooke Peade:I started nursing school right when I got out of high school, so I don't know eight-ish years after um, I worked as a tech um my background's behavioral health. So I was a tech on Monday 3 at Virginia Baptist and then I transferred, being a nurse for there for almost about a year and then I came to hospice.
Cami Smith:Was there a moment at that camp, if you didn't know before, but was there a moment at camp where you were like this is what I want to do.
Cara Brooke Peade:When we were on the ICU floor and I was with the nurse who was doing like 500 things, I was like I want to be able to do that. Maybe not an ICU level, but I want to be able to feel like I'm competent enough to make decisions for patients when it comes to their medicine and how to take care of them. Yeah, it was just like I can do that and I want to do that.
Cami Smith:Do you feel like you were really prepared and you understood? Like what steps do I take now? Like I want to do this thing. I'm surrounded by this health system. Like how do I get there?
Cara Brooke Peade:Oh yeah, I definitely did.
Cami Smith:Yeah, because they even.
Cara Brooke Peade:It wasn't just nursing based. It was people who wanted to, you know, were interested in being doctors or PAs or nurse practitioners, and I felt like they gave us enough to be like.
Cami Smith:This is how you take those steps and get to where you want to be. Yeah, that was actually. My next question is like is this focused towards any type of, like, specialty or type of caregiver? And if so, it sounds like it's not. But what does the program look like?
Brittney Aagaard:Yes. So our goal for the health career camps is that we expose as many health care careers as we can, just to open up the eyes for students to say, hey, like this is something that I didn't know existed and this could be something I really resonate with, just as Cara Brooke said. So we try to not only just focus on the physician and the nurse that you typically hear about, but we try to also focus on all the other careers, and we have so many wonderful people that participate to help us with that. But you know, I think it's important that that there, that we do focus on some of the other careers out there, because there, I know, when I first started in health care I learned so much and I had a little bit of a background in health care and I had no idea what existed.
Brittney Aagaard:So I think it's still important that we put focuses on nursing and position, because there are shortages there too, and so we want to bring all of that to the camp. But you know, bringing in pharmacy, bringing in our medical lab techs and see what they do every day our physical therapists, our occupational therapist, and really seeing you know, what does it take to, you know, for a healthcare team to work together and how can we, you know, expose that to?
Cami Smith:kids to get them excited about it. I love that. And when I think about the only experience well, I don't want to say the only my first experience, because same when I first came into healthcare I just there's so much you don't know from the outside, like behind the hospital doors, it's mind blowing.
Cami Smith:They are some of the most hard working people I have ever met, and it's a passion, it's like a and you know you guys are there, you are some of them, but there is a passion that is driving that. I don't want to say I didn't expect, but it was just so encouraging to see that they're not just here for a paycheck, like there is this caring, very talented, excelled individual who is spending their time in this way. And so that was my first takeaway from getting into healthcare. I was just kind of blown away by the caliber of people that I got to work with.
Cami Smith:But then we had a Beacon of Hope luncheon and there were some Beacon of Hope students and and so just like sitting getting to know them it was at the end of the program and they were kind of like, you know, sharing what they learned and what they wanted to do. And so I sat down with one girl and she was telling me how she's like I'm going to be a lab tech. She's like I came into this totally thinking I was going to do something else she's like, but I loved every minute I got to spend in the lab. And she said she was just so excited by the very detailed and and and how much knowledge really you had to have to do these very detailed things and she just was like so lit up, like she was so excited. And that was my first experience with Beacon of Hope.
Cami Smith:And then we've had some Beacon of Hope students come in through here. We've had some Project Search students come in through here. We've had some. I even think we had some interaction at one of the Omesa camps. We got to go in and we were just there to take pictures, but it was very fun.
Brittney Aagaard:Yes.
Cami Smith:And so I mean there's so much, and so people who are watching are probably wondering, like how do we know? Like how do we get involved in this? Where do I learn more? Where do I sign my child up for summer so I can get them out of the house? Because I'm thinking that too. So how does someone learn more about camps?
Brittney Aagaard:or really any of these opportunities.
Brittney Aagaard:Yes, so we are currently in the process of kind of building our camps for 2025. So you can actually go to the centralhealthcom website and click on education, and we have our MESA as well as a section called K through 12 programs, and the camps will be highlighted there. So there'll be all the information you need to know about how to apply. We also here locally, we reach out to all of the local schools, so public schools, private schools, maybe even had homeschool children come and apply. So we reach out to the guidance counselors and pass all this information out. So sometimes it's even distributed through school. Yeah, so we try to get the message out as much as we can. And then the other thing to know too, is that Bedford and Southside they're hosting camps as well, which I think is amazing that we're able to offer this to people that maybe geographically are closer to those locations but can still have an opportunity for this. So they'll be advertising as well for their camps.
Cami Smith:Yeah, so it's coming. So, Cara, what advice would you have for either the student who's like yes, I want to do that, or the parent who's maybe like I don't know, I have a middle school student. Are they ready? How would you advise them to take this opportunity?
Cara Brooke Peade:I think, no matter what age, it's good because, if I mean, I've known my whole life that I wanted to be a nurse, but sometimes kids don't know and that's scary for them. And going into these camps with an open mind, like the lady you were talking about with, yeah, that she didn't know, yeah, that was something that she wanted to do to be a lab tech and she went to you know, had this experience and was like this is awesome and that's kind of what these camps are good for, because you're getting to see so many different avenues of health care. And so I'd really encourage you know, parents who, parents who are like I don't know to definitely look into it. It's worth it.
Cara Brooke Peade:I mean, I felt like it was worth it when I was a teenager and like, and it's obviously supervised.
Cami Smith:They're going to be saved. We got them, so yeah.
Cara Brooke Peade:I would definitely encourage them to.
Cami Smith:I love that. So is there anything I haven't asked that you feel would be important for our listeners to know?
Brittney Aagaard:I would say you know, knowing what you're going to experience at the camp would be you know, because you may not exactly know what you're getting yourself.
Cami Smith:What am I signing myself for?
Brittney Aagaard:So you know, as I mentioned earlier, we are trying to to get as many departments as we can involved. Earlier, we are trying to get as many departments as we can involved. So one of the great things is that you are getting, you're having the opportunity to work with real healthcare professionals that do this job day in and day out. So they're the ones doing the education and I think that just enriches what they're learning so much more. And the team that we have that comes in. We just have so many volunteers that come in to help with this. They come in on their days off. They're really passionate about the work they do. Last year we had, I want to say, over 70 caregivers that came and dedicated their time.
Brittney Aagaard:And that was just here in Lynchburg, so I know there was more at Southside and Bedford. So they're doing amazing work just to help put on these camps and teach the kids when they come in. But we're doing really cool fun things, hands-on activities. So last year we did. We brought the infection prevention team in and we had a simulated outbreak where oh wow, well, I mean appropriate.
Cami Smith:The kids were like I know exactly what this is so.
Brittney Aagaard:How do we trace this? How do we make sure that you know we stop the spread of germs? Who was the original carrier we have had? Dr Lori McVay has been very gracious and helped us do some pig heart dissection, so she's not only helping them dissect but teaching them heart anatomy as well as a cardiology PA we had last year. You talked about suturing pig's feet. We actually did some suturing of bananas. A few of our APPs came in and the students just thought that was the coolest thing in the world you know, we had, like I said, a pharmacy team has come in to help.
Brittney Aagaard:I'm not even gonna, you know, say everyone, I'm just so grateful that they participate. But we also introduced Syvil Manoah came in and did a section on nutrition and, as a middle schooler and a high schooler, what are some things I should be thinking about from a healthy lifestyle? I love that. So we're not only talking about careers, but we're talking about medical topics. That's just, you know, really engaging and it's that chance for students to really kind of spark interest, because you just never know what. Yeah, you know you may come in knowing that you want to do something, but then you could be totally surprised, yes, and do something different.
Cami Smith:That is very cool. Well, I hope that those who are listening can see the opportunity that is here, whether it's camps or some of the other things that you were listing off earlier. So so check them out on our website, centrahealthcom, and then click on education all types of information there, including, actually not centralized, what we're talking about but central college is also there for you guys who are maybe a little bit further along. You know what you want to do, maybe for nursing, and you want to take that next step, so go check that out. Um, and thank you guys. Thank you for coming and like sharing your experience and talking about what you're so passionate about. I really appreciate your time.
Cami Smith:Yes, thank you guys, yeah, thank you guys for joining us on in so much more.
