Several pre-med students from Knox College got the opportunity to go through a two week medical simulation, lecture, and clinical shadowing with OSF’s Jump Simulation.
The pilot program exposes the students to a variety of roles in the clinical environment and they get the opportunity to get hands on training in several areas of medicine.
Paul Pribaz, Vice President of Jump Simulation Administration says the program gives students a taste of what medical school really looks like. “It’s not a field trip,” said Pribaz. “This is not something we’re just showing them and having a fun time. They are actually being assessed in the same way we assess medical students and residents.”
Pribaz says the goal of the program is to foster the connectivity to residents of Illinois, and giving the soon to be medical students an understanding of the opportunities there are in central Illinois.
Greta Berger, a senior at Knox College studying biology says she received an experience she didn’t think was possible outside of med-school. “I’ve done a lot of shadowing in family practice because that’s what I thought I was really interested in,” said Berger. “But being able to go each day to a new department and actually understanding what’s going on, that’s kind of been my favorite thing and applying that knowledge we’ve gained in the skills lab and simulations into an actual real-life experience with patients has been really rewarding.”
A majority of the students who participated in the pilot Immersion program came from Knox College.
Each student received a certificate of completion as well as documented evaluations from clinical educators to be used for medical school applications.
