UND’s Scrubs Academy helps students take flight toward a career in health care.
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| Second-year medical student Jerdan Ruff and Dean Joshua Wynne teach the anatomy of a pig heart to Scrubs Academy participants. |
It might have been awhile since you’ve heard the classic seventies tune, “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees, but you know how it goes. (And now you may have it stuck in your head for the rest of the day—my apologies). You may associate this song with a number of things: big hair, disco pants, or
Saturday Night Fever. If you’re in health care, you might have learned somewhere along the way that this catchy tune is the pace you should keep while giving compressions for CPR. This rhythm is a part of the numerous health-care related facts learned by 38 students, from rural and urban North Dakota communities, who attended the R-COOL-Health Scrubs Academy.
The Rural Collaborative Opportunities for Occupational Learning in Health, or R-COOL-Health Scrubs Academy, was a four-day, three-night experience where students just finishing Grades 6, 7, or 8 were able to come to the University of North Dakota campus June 19–22, 2011. The Academy’s goal was to provide a platform for the students to learn about a variety of options for careers in health care in an engaging, interactive, and fun environment.
The Center for Rural Health (CRH) has made mini-grants available for community-based health career activities since 2005. These well-received and successful activities were further developed into the Scrubs Camp program, which was modeled after a similar program developed by the South Dakota State Office of Rural Health. The CRH has given 24 grants (2010–2011) to rural communities within the state for one-day Scrubs Camps, where communities had to collaborate with their local health care system, school, or job or economic development authority to put on a daylong event for students to learn about health careers from their local providers.
