Let’s all take a collective deep breath (but not too deep, because someone here is going to try to diagnose your lung capacity). Seton Hall University has decided to launch what can only be described as “Summer Camp: Hospital Edition,” a nine-day immersion experience where high school students get to play doctor without risking malpractice lawsuits. Think of it as Grey’s Anatomy meets summer enrichment, except the “patients” are plastic and nobody’s dating McDreamy in the supply closet.
This is the inaugural Pre-College Health Professions Immersion Program, the brainchild of the School of Health and Medical Sciences (SHMS) and the Department of Continuing Education and Professional Studies. Translation: they gave teenagers a three-credit crash course in five different healthcare disciplines: Speech-Language Pathology, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Physician Assistant training, and Athletic Training. Basically, everything short of letting them scrub into open heart surgery. Yet.
The Simulated Baby Nobody Asked For
Let’s start with the highlight (or nightmare fuel, depending on your perspective): students conducting an APGAR screening on a simulated infant. Picture it—dozens of caffeinated high school juniors nervously prodding a plastic newborn, trying to remember if “grimace” means the baby is crying, smiling, or auditioning for a McDonald’s commercial.
To the untrained eye, this might look like a group of teenagers playing house with the world’s most expensive Baby Alive doll. But in reality, it’s the camp’s way of saying, “Welcome to healthcare, where you’re responsible for things that breathe (or in this case, pretend to breathe).” Nothing says “fun summer memory” like resuscitating a rubber newborn while your peers grade your CPR rhythm like Simon Cowell judging American Idol.
Five Professions, One Big Group Project (Kill Me Now)
Each day focused on one of the five disciplines. It sounds organized on paper, but let’s be real—by day three, half of them were confusing occupational therapy with physical therapy, and by day five, they were ready to diagnose each other with burnout.
Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) day? Cue teenagers learning how to diagnose swallowing disorders while choking down their Starbucks frappuccinos.
Occupational Therapy (OT) day? Imagine explaining “Activities of Daily Living” to kids who haven’t yet mastered laundry.
Physical Therapy (PT) day? Basically, free massages for your classmates if you can convince them “it’s for science.”
Physician Assistant (PA) day? Translation: pretend you’re almost a doctor but with more paperwork.
Athletic Training (AT) day? A chance to wrap each other in so much athletic tape that someone inevitably mummifies their lab partner.
And because college loves nothing more than group projects, students capped off the week by researching a diagnosis that required all five professions. Nothing builds teamwork quite like watching Chad argue that an ankle sprain deserves the same attention as a stroke patient while Olivia insists on color-coding the PowerPoint.
Teamwork: Because “Survivor” Was Already Taken
The camp leaned heavily into interprofessional collaboration, which is academic jargon for “try not to kill each other while working in groups.” Students role-played medical teams, which is adorable when you realize most of them still can’t drive without parental supervision.
But credit where it’s due: this exercise mirrors real healthcare, where doctors, nurses, therapists, and assistants must all communicate to provide comprehensive care. Unfortunately, the students’ first lesson in interprofessional collaboration probably boiled down to:
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PT student: “We need to mobilize the patient.”
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SLP student: “But can they swallow without aspirating?”
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AT student: “Do you guys mind if I tape their knee just in case?”
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PA student: “I’ll chart all of this, but I need a venti cold brew first.”
If nothing else, they got a crash course in the kind of teamwork that makes hospital cafeterias the passive-aggressive war zones we know and love.
CPR Challenge: Summer Fun, But Make It Stressful
Ah yes, CPR training. Because nothing says “summer memories” like performing chest compressions on a lifeless mannequin while your peers chant, “Push harder! Push faster!” like deranged cheerleaders.
One can only imagine the horror of failing a CPR challenge in front of your classmates. Forget SAT scores—this is the real performance anxiety. Somewhere in the corner, there’s always one kid who took a Red Cross class five years ago and won’t shut up about compression depth, while everyone else prays the mannequin doesn’t spit out whatever mysterious liquid it’s filled with.
Still, you have to admire the practicality. By the end of camp, these kids may not know what they want to major in, but at least they’ll be certified to save their classmates from choking on pizza rolls.
Faculty Supervision: AKA, Herding Cats in Lab Coats
SHMS faculty bravely guided students through experiential learning activities, which is a polite way of saying “we let them play doctor but stayed close enough to stop the chaos.”
Highlights included:
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Stroke simulations (cue every teen making “my brain is lagging” jokes).
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Mobility assessments (basically limping around and pretending to be injured).
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Dysphagia labs (nothing says fun like thickened liquids).
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NICU evaluations (again, back to the creepy robot baby).
Honestly, the faculty deserve medals. Keeping twenty teenagers engaged in anything for nine straight days is already Nobel Prize-worthy. Doing it while convincing them healthcare is glamorous? That’s sainthood.
Elizabeth’s Epiphany and the PR Spin
One student, Elizabeth Wood, was quoted saying, “This program opened new doors where a career in speech-language pathology could take me.” Which is nice, but let’s decode: Elizabeth thought she was going to be a neurosurgeon, then realized playing with iPads that generate robotic voices is kind of cool. She’s now “curious about other professions,” which in high school speak means, “I still have no idea what I want to do, but at least I got college credit.”
The administrators, of course, spun this into gold. Assistant Dean Natalie Neubauer noted how “encouraging” it was to see students collaborate and think critically. Translation: nobody cried during the group project and only one kid fainted during the CPR challenge. Success!
Seton Hall’s Commitment to Healthcare’s Future
The press release ends with a sweeping statement about Seton Hall preparing the next generation of healthcare leaders. And sure, that sounds inspiring. But let’s be honest: half of these kids signed up because their parents told them medical careers are “safe and respectable,” and the other half are here because pre-college camps look good on applications.
Will this program churn out the next Dr. Fauci or the next Mayo Clinic CEO? Maybe. Will it churn out college freshmen who actually know what OT stands for? Hopefully. At the very least, they’ll be the only kids in their dorms who can perform the Heimlich without Googling it.
The Bigger Picture: Medicine as Performance
Here’s the funny thing: programs like this reveal how much modern healthcare is performance art. Half the job is looking the part—white coat, clipboard, serious nodding—and these students got an early taste of that theater. They role-played, they simulated, they practiced on dummies. In a sense, the camp was less about healthcare and more about rehearsing the act of being a professional.
But maybe that’s the point. Before you can actually save a life, you need to practice faking it convincingly.
Final Thoughts: Paging Dr. Future
So, what do we make of this grand experiment? On one hand, it’s genuinely cool that teenagers are being exposed to healthcare careers early, building resilience and teamwork skills. On the other, it’s nine days of glorified make-believe, where the scariest outcome is a mannequin that doesn’t pass its APGAR test.
But hey, every doctor starts somewhere. Some start with med school. Some start with a passion for science. And now, apparently, some start by resuscitating a rubber baby at Seton Hall in August.
If that’s the future of medicine, at least the memes will be outstanding.