A group of seniors from Mehlville High School spent a few days sharing what they learned in a career preparation program with their peers.
Students from the St. Louis Center for Advanced Professional Studies (STL CAPS) Program taught a Stop the Bleed class on Thursday and Friday, a CPR life-saving course for teens to have that experience if they ever needed to respond to an incident.
They learned to apply tourniquets, compress and apply pressure to an injury, and other pivotal steps to save a life.
“I learned how to stop a really bad bleeding wound. I remember I had a family member who was bleeding and my dad didn’t know what to do and we were all panicking and stuff and now I know what to do,” said Lajla Veljacic, a sophomore taking the class.
The seniors who lead the class have been getting real-world experience at Mercy South Hospital, where they had the opportunity to learn from clinicians and leaders in a healthcare setting.
“I’ve noticed the difference between nurses that work in the ICU versus the PCU. How the patients vary so much and how their business can change based on the kind of patient that they have and where they are located in the hospital,” said Katie Westermann.
“You get to see how everyone communicates together and how everyone divides their task. We get to shadow in the emergency department. It’s interesting to see how when 5 stroke patients come in, it’s interesting to see how the doctors communicate with their nurses and how they have trust in their nurses,” added Ajdin Mrguda.
Since 2015, STL CAPS has allowed hundreds of juniors and seniors to get experience and connect in different areas, including the Medicine, Healthcare, and Bioscience track, Global Business & Entrepreneurship, and Engineering and Technology Design and Development.
“Although it started in the Kansas City area, they made it open source and it very quickly became a model that school districts identified as a really amazing opportunity to explore and implement and put in front of students as a choice in lieu of staying in a traditional classroom environment for an entire day,” said Dr. Tim Leuke, director.
This year’s class of STL CAPS students includes 25 students from 6 schools: Affton High School, Bayless High School, Kirkwood High School, Lindbergh High School, Mehlville High School, and Oakville High School.
Mehlville, similar to other schools in the region has other choices for students to get training for a career and even one where students can graduate with a diploma and associate’s degree.
The original story, including video from KSDK 5, can be found here.