On Dec 6, 2023, the Medical Exploration 2 (MCE2) class at TuHS had the opportunity to go on a field trip to St. Vincent Hospital in Portland. 

After arriving at the hospital, the students were seated in an auditorium with people from other schools. Shortly after, on a projector, they were able to see Dr. Gary Ott, a cardiac surgeon, perform an aortic valve replacement on a patient that was being recorded from the operating room. In the auditorium during the operation, a physician assistant was present, answering questions that students had about the surgery. 

Afterward, a perfusionist  – responsible for operating equipment, such as the heart-lung machine – and a surgical technician came in and talked about their careers and different roles in surgery. Lastly, after the surgery, Ott came into the auditorium to discuss the details of the surgery and answered questions. 

TuHS health science teacher Heidi Gorka led the field trip. She explained that the trip was a rare opportunity for students. 

“This trip has a waiting list,” she said. “They go through all the schools on the list; we were able to go right before COVID hit, so one year before the pandemic. They started back up again and only limited the trip to seniors starting this year.” 

Trips like this are an important experience for students who think they might want to pursue a career in health sciences.

“This is a great experience for students who think that they want to get into medicine who maybe have never truly seen all the different interworkings of it,” she said. “Even my seniors who’ve taken medical classes for three years find something new and interesting; even I learned something new this time. I didn’t realize physician assistants could scrub in and be surgeons.”

For Gorka, this type of trip is a way for students to see what medical professions are like in a real setting. 

“They had tons of questions,” she said. “We learned a lot about the variety of different jobs; it’s not just a surgeon in an operation; there are 20 other people in that room or helping that patient to a room. Overall, the big takeaway was that the doctors didn’t talk about the operation when actually doing the operation, so the students had different perspectives on what the surgery was like.”

Seniors and MCE2 students Helayna Sy, Leaf Fleming and Juan Orozco were three of the students who watched the surgery. 

“I really enjoyed this experience and am grateful for the opportunity to be further exposed to different professions in the surgical field,” Sy said. “I especially liked that there was a personal assistant who explained everything and answered any questions during the surgery. I feel as though I learned a lot from this time at the hospital, especially since I was given a visual for everything being discussed.”

Fleming agreed that the experience was well worth it.

“Watching the heart surgery was a great educational experience that I am super grateful for,” Fleming said. “It motivated me to continue working towards working in the medical field, and the surgeon inspired me to get the most out of my education. If anyone is considering remotely working in medicine, take human body systems!”

Orozco also found this operation very interesting.

“We were able to see everything that was going on in the operation room,” Orozco said. “We saw how they were getting ready and saw when they started opening up the patient, which I thought I would be more queasy about it but actually found it interesting how they did all that. Overall, it was a very unique experience that I greatly enjoyed.”