The Health Science Theory and Practice classes have been participating in skills lab activities since December. The final skills lab will take place a few days before spring break and the final report is due the last class day before vacation begins. 

The skills labs test students’ abilities to take temperature, blood pressure, pulse, EKG and respiration rates. In order to perform these tasks, students utilize blood pressure cuffs, spirometers, stethoscopes, and EKG machines. The activity and class as a whole are intended for students who plan to pursue a career in the medical field. 

Originally, the students took part in these labs once a week during the first school semester, but they now only do them once a month as a refresher for 15 minutes. This activity gives students the chance to polish their skills on anything they didn’t feel confident in before.  

“The hardest skill for me was probably EKGs because that was the one health procedure that had not been done on me, so I had never observed it in real life,” junior Tanishi Patel said. “Going through the skills lab allowed me to have a more hands-on experience with EKGs and I did end up learning how to do them better.”

Some students reflected on the things they missed out on because of the class’s focus.

“I found the health science skills labs useful,” Patel said. “Although, they didn’t particularly help me to connect with more people in my class because we mainly did skills.”

The skills labs also helped students perfect their abilities to perform certain tasks, one of them being medical bedside manners.

“A lot of classroom learning that we did didn’t explain everything from start to finish because some things seem obvious,” Patel said. “However, when we did a skills lab, we walked in on our patient and took care of them as a medical assistant. We also learned how to introduce ourselves to our patients and how to work with them in real life.”