Local Students Learn To Be USF Bull Nurse Super Heroes

Nine Tampa-area students gathered at the USF College of Nursing on Friday, June 7, for Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, where they took part in activities that every nursing student encounters. The potential nurses of the future also learned life-saving tactics for today.

With a theme of “USF Bull Nurse Super Heroes,” the goal was to teach young students how they can be heroes themselves.

The program, now in its second year, provided students with fun, hands-on activities like creating realistic-looking wounds, or moulage, from toothpaste.

The College of Nursing’s John Todaro, BA, NRP, RN, TNS, NCEE, CHSE, CHSOS and Dr. Teresa Gore, PhD, DNP, FNP-BC, NP-C, CHSE-A led the students through CPR training. Using the manikins in the college’s simulation lab, the students went through compressions with the help of a monitor that showed the rhythm and strength of each repetition.

Gore said she made it a point to not only pique the students’ interests, but also impact their lives presently. That lesson included instruction to locate the closest automated external defibrillator (AED) when in public.

“My thing is, what can we do to impact the community around us?” she said. “If they remember nothing else, that could save somebody’s life. If one of their grandparents goes down, they see somebody (needing help) at the pool, and things like that, they have an idea of what to do.”

With those warnings in hand, the day was still about the fun aspects of a potential career.

For 11-year-old De’Myah Cummings, turning a household item like toothpaste into a makeshift wound was the highlight.

“It was gross,” Cummings said with a laugh. “It was like a pimple. It was just weird.”

The Pizzo Elementary student said she wants to be either a nurse or a lawyer when she grows up. Cummings made sure to attend the program after spending time with her aunt, a nurse who specifically cares for patients with cancer.

Kiana Dell of Turner/Bartels K-8 school returned for the second year after enjoying herself the first time around. She plans to come a third time.

Dell says she wants to enter the medical field in the future, and hopes to learn as much as possible about what nurses and doctors do daily. The ability to continue hands-on activities like CPR, and using a stethoscope to listen to simulated heartbeats, brings her even closer to that day.

When Dell returns again in 2020, Gore says there will be more to do and learn.

“Last year when some of the faculty’s children and grandchildren came down, that’s when we did the moulage, and that’s why we added moulage this year,” Gore said. “Each year, because some of these kids come back year after year after year, we’re trying to give them something different to experience.”

Story by Alex Hooper, USF College of Nursing