Many people think about their dream job, but few have the opportunity to actually try it out before going to college and choosing their major. The Bioscience Academy provides students with the opportunity to participate in two job shadows, each for a two week period, while following a professional of the career at location of their choice.

“The job shadowing program allows our Bioscience students to see in the real world, all the things that they are learning in MedTech while also giving them exposure to different work sites,” Medical Technology (Medtech) teacher Mika Anderson said. “They get to see a variety of departments through our relationship with VCMC, as well as CMH and St. Johns, and they shadow doctors and physicians and see what the day to day is like.”

Although job shadowing requires many skills, Medtech helps prepare the students thoroughly.

Anderson said the job shadowing program has been made possible through “years and years of networking” with local hospitals and medical centers. It allows Bioscience students to grasp the types of workflow and atmospheres of a certain jobs, and alter their career choices according to realistic experiences.

“A lot of students have discovered ‘I don’t like all the paperwork it involves’ or ‘I don’t like dealing with all the people and I was surprised to find that the lab is a better place for me because I’m interacting with the data and diagnosis of patients behind the scenes,’’’ Anderson said.

Through intensive study of medical terminology, first aid and CPR training in Medtech, students are able to understand conversations between doctors and patients, and are given the oppertunity to deepen their understanding of specific subjects.

“For example, we’ve done EKG [electrocardiology] and they can go to a cardiologist and see more about the heart and more of what they do with this information,” Anderson said. “And the kids are professional. We teach them to wear scrubs and act the part, so a lot of times they’re mistaken for residents, and they don’t realize that students shadowing are actually high school students.”

 
Matthew Gonzales

Junior Matthew Gonzales, who plans to be a physician in the future, job shadowed in the Emergency Room at Ventura County Medical Center.

“One of the things I noticed from my physician job shadowing was that there was a lot of paperwork,” he said. “At my two hours at the ER, only 45 minutes were spent with the actual patient, and the rest of the time was spent recording patient information and doing a bit of analysis.”

As Gonzales studied the physician’s analysis, he noted that he was able to understand it from the knowledge he acquired in the Bioscience Academy and his physiology class.

“Medtech helped me prepare a lot for the job shadows. I knew medical terms, such as the prefixes and suffixes of diseases,” he said. “ Physiology class also prepared me very well, there were lots of bone structures on screen, and that was very applicable to what we learned.”

Gonzales found his shadowing experience very satisfying, as he was able to see firsthand how the material learned in the Academy applied to real-life situations, and experience the workflow of the job. He said he hopes to become a physician in the future.

“I liked that there was never a dull moment. Everyone seemed very passionate about what they do. Everyone was very serious, but at the same time it was very relaxed,” he said.

Ariana Singer

Another junior, Ariana Singer, who is in the Bioscience Academy and plans to have a job in the medical field, shadowed a Clinical Perfusionist at St. Johns Private Hospital in Oxnard.

“I got to look at all of the equipment, I scrubbed into a quadruple coronary artery bypass, and watched a surgeon repair a tear in the septum,” Singer explained.

Singer said that she learned how many other jobs were being done in the Operation Room besides

surgery, including the Clinical Perfusionist. She explained that the Clinical Perfusionist was the person responsible for keeping the patient alive for the whole operation.

Overall, Singer said that she really liked her experience doing a job shadow and had no aspects that she disliked.

Singer said she thought that job shadowing was a great opportunity and Bioscience would help students in the future.

“Job shadows are definitely a good opportunity as well as Bioscience. Both give you the opportunity to experience things that you definitely wouldn’t have the opportunity to experience in high school otherwise,” she said. 

Devin Peterson

Junior Devin Peterson shadowed at the Public Health Clinic in Oxnard with Daniel Wall and at St. John’s Hospital in Camarillo with Dr. Jeffrey Ballard.

Most of all, he enjoyed seeing a hip replacement take place at the Orthopedic Center in St. John’s Hospital.

“At the surgery center I had to get all scrubbed up for the surgery, […] and I got to go into the surgery room to observe and ask questions,” he said.

“It was unreal when they cut off the head of the femur to put in the hip replacement. The nurse came over and held the femur right in front of me,” he said. “I was like, ‘whoa, that’s part of a person.’”

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Peterson also found that there were career paths he wouldn’t be interested in. After shadowing at the Public Health Office, he found that he didn’t enjoy it as much as he thought.

“I know now I don’t want to go into public health. Public health is definitely a necessary field, but it’s just not really my style,” he said. “Instead of prevention, I want to work with helping people that already have problems.”

He said he thought that the job shadows were also beneficial to students who are “science-minded” but not interested in medicine.

“Not only do these job shadows reassure people that know they want to enter the medical field, but they open people’s minds up to new things that they maybe haven’t thought of,” Peterson said.

Peterson is looking forward to his third and final job shadow on Wednesday at the Community Memorial Hospital.

Background Photo Credit: Mika Anderson. Used with permission.