August 1, 2014
Douglas student Charleigh Shipley, left, works with Bailee Smith of Cheyenne during
the recent Wyoming Area Health Education Center Health Care Careers Summer Camp at
the University of Wyoming. Students learned about the requirements necessary to pursue
a health care career as well as the numerous job opportunities that will be available
throughout Wyoming upon completion of their training. (UW Photo)
Charleigh Shipley of Douglas felt there was no better way to spend her summer than
to find an enjoyable way to search for a future career. She was able to do that by
attending the recent Wyoming Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Health Care Careers
Summer Camp at the University of Wyoming.
During the camp, Shipley and Raven Faran of Douglas were among 40 high school students
from 21 Wyoming communities who learned about the requirements necessary to pursue
a health care career as well as the numerous job opportunities that will be available
throughout Wyoming upon completion of their training.
“I believe that if you find a particular career or profession to be fascinating, why
not further pursue it?” asks Shipley, who wants to enter the health care field after
high school. “The camp has reinforced my health care career aspirations a great deal.
Not only has it opened my eyes to all of the fields of health care study, but it also
has given me the opportunity to find what I would at least be fairly decent at.”
At the UW camp, high school students were exposed to careers in such fields as nursing,
pharmacy, medicine, surgical technology, forensics, dental hygiene, radiography and
ultrasonography. Activities took place on the UW campus, Laramie’s Ivinson Memorial
Hospital and at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne.
Students had opportunities to suture (with chicken breasts); make “medicated” gummy
bears; make a cast; perform an ultrasound-guided “biopsy”; and operate a laparoscope,
an instrument used to examine abdominal or pelvic organs.
“Wyoming is facing a critical shortage of health care workers. Camp sponsors hope
that opportunities like this will motivate students to consider pursuing health care
careers,” says Marivern Easton, Wyoming AHEC program director and UW College of Health
Sciences WWAMI Medical Education assistant director. “The shortage will worsen as
the baby boomer generation ages.”
Each Wyoming county is dealing with shortages in primary care and mental health, and
many face shortages of dentists and other health care professionals.
The key, Easton says, is to identify, recruit, train and retain Wyoming residents.
“If we can generate enthusiasm among high school-aged students and support them as
they pursue education and training opportunities, we have a much stronger possibility
of eventually employing them as health care workers throughout Wyoming,” she adds.
Shipley says she really enjoyed the experience at the UW camp.
“What the counselors and Marivern have taught us are things you can't just learn from
anywhere,” she says. “I want to send them all the biggest ‘thank you’ I can possibly
give, and tell them how much we all appreciate what they have taught us, and the time
they had given to each individual.”
The camp is sponsored by the Wyoming AHEC, UW College of Health Sciences, WWAMI (Washington
Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho) Medical Education Program, Wyoming Office of Rural
Health, Laramie County Community College, Wyoming Center for Nursing and Health Care
Partnerships, and Ivinson Memorial Hospital.
For more information about the summer camp, call Easton at (307) 766-6751.
