70 high school students interested in a future in healthcare participated in a program that allowed them to see day-to-day hospital operations.

The Lexington Medical Center’s Partners Program has been happening for more than 20 years and gives students the chance to participate in clinical rotations, interactive workshops, field trips, and to hear from guest speakers during seminars. 

According to a release, rotations included a variety of clinical areas, such as imaging services, physical therapy, orthopedics, nursing, emergency departments and more. The program was broken down into two sessions in the summer, with one running June 12-30 and the other July 10-28.

“Honestly, you can't describe the experience that these kids have in just a sentence,” said Marquita Gaines, workforce coordinator for the program. “They see so much within those three weeks from working alongside nurses, physicians, nurse technicians, they're in radiology, looking at x-rays, they're in physical rehab, you know helping folks walk.”

“You can't really describe the amount of exposure that they get,” she added.

According to Gaines, students from Lexington and Richland County are selected through an application that asks about hobbies, healthcare clubs, recommendations from individuals in their lives and other interests. Gaines told the Chronicle that the goal of the application is to show a genuine interest in potentially pursuing healthcare as a career.

“It's a critical time for them to make some real decisions. So it does help them shape their careers,” he said. “It gives them that exposure like I stated and ultimately, this is a wealth of knowledge that they receive in those three weeks to help them make the best decisions about their future.”

One participant was Katie Gandy, who will be a senior this year at River Bluff High School. She told the Chronicle that she has a huge interest in working in the medical field and wanted to join the Partners Program for the hands-on experience she would receive.

“I feel like this program was definitely like a moment of reassurance for me,” Gandy said “I doubt myself constantly, that'll even happen when I'm older. Being able to see patients and just being in an environment that I feel so loved in, I feel like people like everyone was so kind and so generous to me. I just feel like it really reassured me that this was something I really want to do when I'm older. “

“So I feel like the Partners Program was a huge factor in making me realize that the medical field is somewhere that I want to be when I'm older,” she added.

According to Gaines, the program has changed over time, with it originally being a paid position that went all summer long.

During the current sessions, students have a pretty set schedule, completing their rotations between 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Tuesdays included field trips, with some locations being the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and Midlands Technical College to learn about EMS and paramedic departments. Fridays consisted of seminars in which the students heard from different doctors.

“The longevity of this program shows our footprint here and the impact that we make on the community is honestly valuable and it's profound,” Gaines said. “I think it shows that we also want to listen, we want to invest early into the community. We want to show the young you know our younger students or our younger population of our high schoolers even down to middle schoolers, we want to show them that they can have a lucrative and fulfilling career in healthcare.

“This program gives them that opportunity to truly truly dive into and immerse themselves into health care,” she added.