Castleton nursing students recently put down their books for a hands-on learning experience. Sponsored by and working along side the U.S. Army Reserves, 46 junior and senior nursing students and two faculty members took part in a Hemorrhage Clinic designed to teach the basics of how to stop excessive bleeding in a patient, second to trauma-inflicted injuries.
Hosted in Hoff Hall on November 29th, the event was organized by junior John Wood with the help of nursing professor Margaret Young, who is also known as Colonel Young of the U.S. Army Nursing Corps. Together they reached out to Colonel Chris O'Connell with 14 years of service as a flight nurse and currently working as Director of Nursing for the Emergency Department at Dartmouth Hitchcock.
“After a lecture by Colonel O'Connell, who is a terrific speaker, full of information, enthusiasm, and humor; we broke into smaller groups and were taught how to use tourniquets, pack simulated wounds in fresh beef shoulders, and use various types of pressure bandages and dressings” said Wood.
In addition to Colonels O’Connell and Young, several other experienced medics from the Army helped teach to the hands-on workshop.
“These men and women have experienced very real situations where the proper application of a tourniquet was a life or death reality. Their perspective enhanced the experience by putting it into a real world perspective,” Wood explained.
Castleton students benefitted from the clinic through further exposure and understanding of the circulatory and cardiac processes in a unique firsthand way. While the information was presented from an Army perspective, much of the same material is relevant in everyday life from knife wounds, gunshots, vehicle and industrial accidents to sports accidents and many other kinds of trauma.
The group hopes to welcome the Medical Corps back to campus during the spring semester for a clinic on suturing.
“We were exposed to different faces from outside of campus with different experiences and perspectives to share,” said Wood. “Hopefully this is useful for students to think about an area of potential focus.”