Byline: DANIELLE FURFARO - Staff Writer
ALBANY - As the children in the Myers Middle School Leadership Institute toured the emergency room of St. Peter's Hospital, it turned out to be useful for more than just educational purposes.
As the doctors staged a mock overdose and described putting a tube down a patient's throat, pumping their patient's stomach and filling it with charcoal, one of the kids in the group fainted.
The 12-year-old sixth-grader turned out to be OK, and the inaugural outing of the group that formed to explore career fields continued without further incident.
The Leadership Institute was created out of a partnership of the middle school and Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Capital Region. It is based on the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce's Capital Leadership Program, which is aimed at adults.
Every month for the rest of the school year, the Leadership Institute will visit businesses and organizations to explore various career fields. In addition to health and medicine, the students will explore jobs in government, sports management, entertainment, transportation, planning and public relations, and media.
'We want to show these things to inner-city students to inspire them into careers and into community leadership,' said Pat Fahy, director of partnership development at Big Brothers Big Sisters.
On their health and medicine day, which also included a trip to the Whitney Young Health Center, the students saw presentations from a variety of health professionals, such as doctors, nurses, microbiologists and dietitians.
'We chose things we know populations of kids are exposed to in their daily lives,' said St. Peter's spokeswoman Nancy Serge. 'We chose to simulate a drug overdose, because a lot of the kids are exposed to drugs, and to show them respiratory, because a lot of the kids have asthma.'
The students participating in the program had all expressed some interest in student government. And even at the tender middle school age, many of them already knew what they might want to be when they grow up.
'I always paid attention in science, and I think I like dietitians,' said Esther Tsvaygenbaum, a 13-year-old eighth-grader. 'My family has a past history of diabetes. I'd like to be able to take care of my family and help my body.'
And some students, while they might not know yet what career they want, are sure of which ones they don't want.
'I don't want to work in a hospital. I'm kind of skittish,' said eighth-grader Robert Cosgrove, 13. 'I was scared about going into the emergency room, so I'm glad they had curtains up.'
Danielle Furfaro can be reached at 454-5097 or by e-mail at dfurfaro@timesunion.com.
