Thank you to the Columbus Regional Healthcare System’s (CRHS) staff who took the Open Minds Teen Science Cafe (OMTSC) group from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences at Whiteville under their wings on Friday, January 16, 2015, and gave them an eye-opening and ‘behind the scenes’ tour of the Emergency and Surgery Departments at their Health Care facility.
Tour guide, Terrie Priest, Vice President of Business Development and Health Care Community Relations arranged for the special tour so the teens would be able to see first-hand not just the facility, but the staff it takes to make a hospital run. The teens just scratched the surface of CRHS, but came away realizing it takes teams of dedicated people in each department to make the facility successful.
Sherry Shepard, MSN, RN, Director of CRHS Emergency Services, who spoke at the OMTSC’s November 2014 Cafe about the Emergency Department (ED) at CRHS, walked the group through the ED showing them some of the department workings she had spoken of in her presentation. One teen participant commented: ‘…my favorite part was…being able to witness the intricate procedural steps that took place in order to ensure the patient’s well-being’.
The issue of keeping certain environments and tools sterile was brought up, so the group then moved to the autoclave room where instruments used during evaluations, procedures and surgeries, to name a few instances, are taken through the sterilization process using the autoclave machine. The two technicians on duty, Ashley and Erica, showed the teens the machine and explained the steps they took to sterilize the needed instrumentation.
