Senior Malou Munch always knew she wanted a career in healthcare. So her counselor recommended she take Fundamentals of Nursing.
“If anyone has the interest of nursing or any medical field, this class is such a great class. It promotes your independence,” said Munch. “It’s just very enriching, fulfilling and really teaches you time management and how to be empathetic. It really impacts you as a person.”
Fundamentals of Nursing is one of the many health care oriented classes offered at Oak Park River Forest High School. Taught by Allison Hennings and Jaclyn Thompson, the class has four sections, and each section is capped at 16 students, according to Hennings.
What sets Fundamentals of Nursing apart from other classes is the opportunities it gives the students. Students in the class go to “clinicals” eight times throughout the school year at Rush Hospital. During these clinicals, the students are matched with a nurse or a certified nursing assistant (CNA) during which time they learn how to do hands-on care of real patients.
“Recently, on the first day of clinicals, one of our students was matched with a nurse who was taking care of six different patients in the telemetry unit,” said Hennings. “By the end of their first day, students were taking vital signs on the patients and doing all the things that a CNA would do all the time, just with somebody there to guide them.”
Alongside the opportunity to work alongside professionals in the field, students who take the class are eligible to receive dual credit with Triton College. They will be able to take these credit hours with them to almost any college they apply to. Upon finishing the course, students are also given the opportunity to sit for the Certified Nursing Assistant exam, and if they pass the students will receive their CNA license.
“Having the opportunity for our OPRFHS students to obtain their CNA certification is a huge win for the future of health care,” said Hennings. “There is an enormous shortage of health care workers worldwide, and having our students have the potential to alleviate some of this shortage highlights how OPRFHS is meeting the needs of the real world as well as providing exciting and relevant opportunities for our students.”
According to Matt Kirpatrick, the head of science and applied technology at OPRF, the goal of these classes is to develop career-related skills and have the students leave with a tangible idea of what their careers could be.
Kirpatrick was the one who decided that Fundamentals of Nursing should be taught at OPRF amid this push in 2017. He chose nursing over other fields based on student demand. “It was the one that we chose first, because it was the one that our students were most interested in, and the one that we really had, you know, a need in the area because of our proximity to such a large amount of health care industry,” said Kirkpatrick.
Brian Dubina, the pre-vocational coordinator at OPRF, has been instrumental in helping establish a partnership with a local assisted living facility. That partnership led to a number of the nursing students being hired as CNAs at the assisted living facility, according to Kirkpatrick.
Due to the Fundamentals of Nursing being part of the push by the state of Illinois to bring deliberate career programming into high schools, the supplies and equipment for the course are almost completely funded by federal grants.
“There are very few schools that are lucky enough to have the ability to house the classes within their school building,” according to Kirkpatrick.
“I’m so grateful that I decided to take it last year,” said senior Mia Barriuso. “It was something that I was interested in, and I thought this would be a good chance to figure out if it was for me. I really liked it, and now I’m going into nursing for college.”
