Seventeen-year-old Rekah Bonnah has always been pretty confident she would grow up to become a nurse. But she didn’t like the idea of heading off to college, only to find a year or two into the program that nursing wasn’t for her.
Now, the Grade 12 student at Westview Centennial Secondary School, southwest of Jane Street and Finch Avenue, doesn’t have to play that waiting game. After enrolling in an innovative health care course at Westview, Bonnah knows she’s on the right path.
“I want to be a registered nurse. I like working with people. I work with a lot of my brothers when they are sick. I like to make people feel better,” said Bonnah, who is planning to attend Humber College for two years and finish her education at York University. “(This program) is a really good opportunity. You get to learn about things you want to do in the future.”
While Bonnah and 20 other students have enrolled in the inaugural semester of the program, you’d never think they were learning in a classroom. Their shop class has been transformed into a hospital-like setting, complete with nine beds surrounded by privacy curtains and equipment such as blood pressure machines, weight scales, bedpans, bottles of hand sanitizer, a back board and a wheelchair.
The Alwyn Barry Centre for Healthcare Studies, which held its official opening Thursday, Oct. 29, is named after Alwyn Barry, a Westview student who portrayed his unsuccessful fight with colon cancer in a documentary. He died in 2007 at the age of 18.
While other high schools offer their students a chance to explore health care careers through initiatives such as co-op courses in medical settings, school principal Paul Edwards said Westview is the only Toronto high school to have a hospital-setting on-site.
What’s more, the program is partnered with Seneca College, which sends a teacher once a week to teach the students about anatomy and physiology and offers pupils who end up going to Seneca a first-year credit if they earn at least 60 per cent in the class.
Westview is now applying to the province to allow students graduating from the program to earn their high school diploma with a specialist high skills designation in health care.
Students in the program learn the basics of health care equipment, terminology and procedures.
The course caters to students in all academic streams, whether they are heading to university or college, want to take an apprenticeship program following graduation or go straight into the workforce.
Some of the jobs students aspire to include nurse, doctor, physiotherapist, paramedic, medical secretary, respiratory therapist, dentist, dental hygienist, pharmacist, child and youth worker, medical researcher, dietician and personal trainer.
In addition to in-class studies, students earn credits through co-op placements in health care environments. Bonnah, for example, is doing her placement as a nurses’ assistant at Humber River Regional Hospital.
“I really enjoy this class. I really appreciate it. I look forward to it every day,” she said. Edwards, former principal Randy Palermo who helped launch the program, and teacher Vangie Tindale all said the program takes student learning to a new level.
“It is opening the minds of kids to other possibilities, to future career pathways,” Edwards said.
Palermo agreed.
“It is so wonderful. It is a multiple-level program so it provides (entry) to all different pathways in the health care professions,” he said. “To be able to have that hands-on experience that this kind of classroom provides is a terrific value to engaging students. It just takes one look, one quick discussion with students to see how this facility and program is making a tremendous difference.”