Picture a hacksaw cutting through a bone. That’s what drew dozens of NPHS students to this month’s medical club.  The students weren’t actually sawing a bone like in a horror movie; they were using a drill to insert screws to learn how to repair semi-torn tendons. 

Covid-19 forced the newly established medical club to take a break last spring, but this year they have been meeting regularly to learn about medical practices.  Stations were set up around the library to give students a chance to experience  bone sawing, wrapping casts, conducting an ultrasound on feet, checking blood pressure and suturing. 

Sophomore Nathan Unger practiced stitching wounds together using a fish hook-like needle and thread.  Students had to apply pressure to pierce into the silicone “flesh” and then knot a thread into sutures. “The suturing was really hands on,” he said. 

Junior Beckett Allen said he wants to be an emergency room physician and thinks the club provides great opportunities. “I just want to get some exposure to the other fields of medicine and see what I’m interested in,” he said. 

Medical club sponsor podiatrist Joshua Wray started the club to give students the opportunity to explore various careers in healthcare. “I hope they get to see what’s out there, everyone thinks doctor or nurse, but there are hundreds of professions,” he said. 

Junior Kaitylyn Evans said the club is giving her more exposure to jobs. “I wasn’t for sure what I wanted to do,” she said. “I figured this is the best way to figure it out.”

Wray said the club helps students discover what they want to do with their life. “There are lots of opportunities out there,” he said. “Even when I went to college, I didn’t know what was out there.” 

The medical club will meet next on March 17 to tour the hospital.

 Oh yeah I plan on continuing the club to help people realize what they want to do and not only in health care but other opportunities in college or employment or whatever they want to do with their life”

“Wray say the club shows a lot there are lots of opportunities out there, and even Ii when I went to college I didn’t know what was out there”

The casting takes a fiberglass roll then when wet is sticking and malleable then once given time it becomes hard. Once they have the cast hard and drive it’s taken to a vibrating saw that breaks the fiberglass cast that is in a hashtag pattern.

There is a station that shows you how to fix a stretched tendon if you roll your ankle, using a drill they go into the bone and create threads like a screw has, then use an anchor which is a screwdriver looking tool with a string wrapped from the head to the end of the handle. Then they put it in which fixes the stretched or torn tendon.

At the ultra sound station they use a goo that helps the machine look through the foot and to the bone and tendons, it lets you see even your muscles when you flex and move your feet.

Wray started the club to educate people that medicine isn’t just doctor and nurse and it has worked for many people. “Yeah I think I want to be a emergency medicine physician someday but doing something like this and the meeting we have had in the past has really solidified the fact that i want to be a doctor someday,” said junior Beckett Allen

The anthologist station is where a doctor teaches you how to read blood pressure and take blood pressure, oxygen levels, and teaches you what an anysologist is.