If you’ve been around long enough you know that the East Central Indiana Area Health Education Center (ECI-AHEC) is an organization housed under the College of Health. Their work is extremely important as they offer needed trainings, health fairs, and partner with our Interprofessional Community Clinic, other postsecondary institutions, and other community partners on a variety of additional outreach events.

They also do a lot in the secondary education realm with providing a wide variety of supplemental health and science demonstrations to area schools to introduce health careers pathways to prospective students. Currently ECI-AHEC partners with 8 schools and career centers in the ten-county region they serve. Jacob Werst, Assistant Director of Outreach and Secondary Education for ECI-AHEC said, “I work with Biology, Anatomy, CNA, and EMT classes. I always work with high school students to discuss health careers pathways as part of the lessons to help generate interest in a variety of health-related fields. Doing it at this age with students interested in health careers is meant to help introduce students to pathways they may not have previously thought about as it relates to the content of the lesson.”

In addition to high schools, Jacob has also been able to provide some interactive demonstrations to our Speech Pathology & Audiology 161 course, Anatomy and Physiology for the Speech and Hearing Mechanism. He partners with Lahody Meats to bring a unique hands-on demonstration with a bovine trachea, heart and lungs, allowing students to see rise and fall of the lung mechanisms, along with one student volunteer to dissect the lungs, to show the inner structure up close.

Professor Dawn Condon, said of this demonstration, “Anatomy and physiology is the foundation for many speech and swallowing skills.  It is common to memorize and take quizzes from lined drawings and diagrams for anatomy classes.  I strive to make anatomy functional and memorable.  “Hands on” exploration is a functional way to identify and recall each structure and apply to future clinical needs.”

This demonstration is just one of the options for supplemental lessons in a variety of area schools. He also does lessons on

• Open Wounds
• Patient Zero (Epidemiology)
• Handwashing
• Blood Draws
• DNA Extraction
• Eye Dissection
• Fixing Fractures
• Geriatric Simulation
• Ankle-Brachial Index (checking for peripheral artery disease)

Jacob said, “The best part about these lessons, is helping students learn about how many other options there are to pursue in health care other than some of the more prominent options like physician/surgeon and nurse. During one of my lessons this year, a student who only considered nursing as an option previously had me work with her to find available sonography programs in the state after completing the ankle-brachial index activity.”

Students tend to really enjoy many of the activities provided by ECI-AHEC, as it gives them a peek into healthcare that thy might not otherwise have. It also helps them focus their interests by finding out if they don’t like one aspect of a prospective career. “With the work that I do, it allows me to provide information to students about the many options that Ball State provides as well as the options at the other colleges and universities in our area that I work with. I also take a bit of my time to discuss pre-health professions paths that students might not think about and how these programs prepare them for pursuing doctoral degrees in health care,” Jacob said.