Students spend last quarter of high school pursuing their passions rather than attending a full day of classes
By Caroline Favret, ’18
Community School seniors are currently taking part in explorations ranging from studying language dialects to tracking fashion trends to spending time in the great outdoors fishing or preserving wildlife. Seniors Ava Crawford and Manar Ibraheem both decided to pursue Odysseys in the medical field, in which they hope to continue their work.
New in Nursing
Senior Ava Crawford is shadowing a nurse at Mount Carmel East in the mother infant unit, labor and delivery, and the ER. Crawford is also getting her Stna certification, which is a state tested nurse aide. It’s a two week course, then Crawford will have clinicals at an assisted living home for two days.
Q: What’s been your favorite part so far?
A: Probably shadowing in the ER — it was the most exciting and real experience I had so far. Seeing how the nurses act in a time of crisis was interesting to see.
Q: What made you interested in medicine?
A: I have a lot of family in the medical field, and I had the opportunity to shadow my aunt at the children’s hospital in Cincinnati a couple years back and it really inspired me to pursue my studies as a nurse.
Q: Are you considering pursuing medicine after high school?
A: Yes, I’m going in to nursing at the University of Cincinnati and will be using my stna certification by working in the children’s hospital while I’m in school.
Q: Are you considering practicing medicine outside of the United States?
A: The University of Cincinnati provides a lot of medical mission trips to places where they lack good healthcare and I will definitely participate in those.
Making Medication
Senior Manar Ibraheem has chosen to explore another side of the medical industry: pharmaceuticals. Ibraheem is spending her time interning at Crosby’s Drugs and Home Health Care, where she is learning how to compound pills.
Q: Is this something you want to do as a job later?
A: Yes, for my Odyssey I was hoping it would help me decide between becoming a surgical nurse or a pharmacist, but I didn’t know much about pharmacy so that’s why I picked that for my odyssey. Even after a week of being there I’m really set on it and I plan on following it in college.
Q: Can you describe what your days are like?
A: The experience is really different, it’s not just about medicine you have to be really good with everyone around you and have really good people skills, because sometimes you’ll have to call the doctors to double check on a prescription, or meet new people to prescribe new medication and [you have to] be able to understand what’s going on with them.
Q: Is it stressful at all?
A: It can be at times, but usually they’re helping me with everything. If I have a day where I’m going to be making some of the pills with them, they give me packets of all the rules and steps and I have to read them before I can do anything, so that’s kind of stressful along with the [medical] terms they use because I don’t know many of them.