Recently, Portola Jr./Sr. High School teamed up with Eastern Plumas Health Care for a Healthy Lifestyle discussion and Career Tours. 180 7th – 10th grade students walked over from the school campus to listen to Family Nurse Practitioner Mary Morrison manage to make health and wellness relevant to teenagers. It was an amazingly respectful and interested group of young people, and even when they broke up into groups for their respective Career Tours, the kids managed to make the event looked well choreographed.

Students could choose from the following list of specialties in an effort to learn about their potential career choice: Information Technology, Radiology, Laboratory, Nursing, Long Term Care/Candy Stripers, EMT/Ambulance, CareFlight, Telemedicine, and Dentistry. Each tour group received handouts with information about their chosen profession, as well as the training and education it requires. Tours were lead by staff members from each field.

The event was met with such enthusiasm on the part of both students and staff, that a more comprehensive Career Day is being planned for 11th and 12th grades in early Fall so that Seniors who want to do their Senior Project at the hospital will understand the wide array of possible options that are available.

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The crew from CareFlight flew in just so they could talk to Portola Jr./Sr. High students as part of Healthy Lifestyle Education and Career Day at Eastern Plumas Health Care. Jason Knight, Flight Paramedic and Base Coordinator, explained what it’s like to work as part of the CareFlight crew, a job that is physically and mentally demanding, but also exciting and fun. Students were encouraged to climb inside the helicopter and imagine what it would be like to take care of an emergency patient inside the cramped cockpit during flight. The Careflight helicopter and crew then made their dramatic exit as students watched from below. PHS 9th – 10th grade students, from left: Pedro Benuto, Gabe Casillas, Kaitlyn Boyd, Rachel Wehrman, Clayton Sears, and Brenden Herbert.