Recruitment into Nursing Resource Manual
Lower Middle School (ages 9-12, grades 3-6 +)

Focus:

Who is interested in a health career? Hands on experience of skills and ideas - They enjoy doing things, not just talking and listening. They are still formulating ideas so there is time to promote the career of nursing.


Suggested activities:

  1. Stories to read: Could be more technical and deal with tougher subjects - surgery, chronic illnesses, trauma or unhealthy life choices.
  2. Continue learning about body and systems with increasing technical exposure. This is a great are to do heart and lung dissections. Showing the results of smoking on lungs; showing actual tissues or pictures of pathologies.
  3. The MLN video will continue to be effective. You may wish to tape segments of ER, Chicago Hope, even the Discovery Channel surgery clips. The key is to show variety, flexibility and thinking skills. These are used to open up discussion.
  4. Basic first aid is always a good hands' on experience. The Heimlich Maneuver is also useful and students like to know these things (and can do them effectively).
  5. Play nurse - use equipment like models, Doppler stethoscopes or IV machines. Let them learn a basic skill - show them gloving and BPs for example.
  6. Always include personal stories.
  7. With a Polaroid camera, take students pictures and insert into a "Future Nurse" certificate. Sign them up to be future nurses on the website: www.pronurse.com.
  8. Activities under earlier ages may also be applicable to this group.
  9. Develop a Power Point presentation about nursing emphasizing the flexibility, chance for promotion and travel and career development possible.
  10. Show a critical pathway and how it is used to plan care. Tie into the "day in the life of a nurse" ideas. Show how the nurse needs to take the pathway and make decisions based on the patients' data and nursing judgments. Discuss the skills that are needed for that patient.

Supplies/Resources

MLN Video or film clips
Equipment that students can manipulate
Booklets about nursing and educational preparation needed
Age appropriate anatomy, physiology or healthly living books
Websites for information
Gloves, surgical caps and masks are still a hit
"Future Nurse" certificate
Computer with an internet connection
Critical pathways for examples

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