Augusta’s LAUNCH held its seventh annual camp and hosted 150 K-12 students to learn about a variety of healthcare topics on Saturday, July 13.
LAUNCH, or Leaders and Adolescents Uniting to Navigate Careers in Healthcare, is an early-exposure healthcare pipeline program first created by Dr. Kendra Broussard, a Hephzibah native, to close educational gaps and combat barriers of entry into the healthcare field through meaningful exploration.
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Founder and President of LAUNCH, Broussard, from Doctors Hospital, said she started the camp in 2017 to give students an incredible learning opportunity, and was thrilled to see more and more campers attend every year.
“It’s really exciting from the beginning to the end … I think all in all just seeing the kids make friends and learn – that’s real fun to watch,” she said. “I think that overall that will bring more healthcare professionals into areas that are underserved and we’ll be able to fill that gap as well.”
Although most students who attend the all-day event are local to the CSRA, over the years, Broussard said she was shocked to see that several campers also travel from all over the state to participate in LAUNCH, some as far as Atlanta and Statesboro.
Thanks to Augusta University and Wellstar MCG Health’s support, who hosts the camp within a health sciences building on AU’s medical campus, Broussard said the program is run by over 70 volunteers and guest speakers, including AU healthcare students and working professionals.
From suturing bananas to learning about speech pathology or how to take a heart rate, Broussard said there is something exciting for each grade level to learn.
“It’s a pretty unique curriculum that we created specifically for today, where students get to go from classroom to classroom doing hands-on activities and procedures,” she said. “… we have several students that repeat the camp every single year, because every year there’s something new that comes about.”
For campers who might later decide they are not interested in pursuing a career in healthcare, Broussard said she believes LAUNCH still serves as a great interaction for children, which might make them less weary around their own doctors and nurses.
Volunteer Garrett Green, associate vice president of Access, Success and Belonging at AU, said he wanted to be involved with LAUNCH because he believes it strengthens AU’s mission to be accessible, inclusive and inviting.
“Knowing that we can show these students that you can not only become aware and involved in health sciences, but also they can do it specifically here at Augusta University,” he said. “We just saw it as a direct tie-in, so I really look forward to not only supporting it now but in the future.”
Impressed with Broussard’s “well run operation,” Green said it was “phenomenal” to witness volunteering AU students pass on their healthcare knowledge to inspire the next generation of medical professionals.
“Not only are our faculty and staff from AU volunteering, but our students are as well, and students a lot of the time learn really well from other students,” he said. “So, it’s great that we can use our students as possibility models for these students, because a lot of the time our current students at AU are from these same high, middle and elementary schools.”
For AU students, Green said he hopes each ends the day with a sense of great pride at giving back to the community and understanding the powerful influence they can have on high schoolers who might be envisioning themselves as nurses, doctors and more.
Regular volunteer Caroline Gloster, a student from AU’s Dental College of Georgia, said she started helping with the camp four years ago at the request of a professor, but quickly fell in love with instructing the younger students.
“It’s been so rewarding to see how engaged they got, and I think it made me realize how much I knew and am able to contribute,” she said. “So, it’s great to work with the students, because they’re so shy when they start but at the end of the day they’re really excited and asking questions.”
Growing up in the CSRA, Gloster said she never felt as though she had someone to be a healthcare career role model, but programs like LAUNCH place students in environments of diversity to prevent them from feeling discouraged by possible barriers.
“When students see people that look like them, especially with this program, it makes them feel like they can definitely pursue these careers,” she said. “Even if they only come once, it’s such a valuable experience in such a short period of time … it just helps them make an informed decision a lot earlier in life.”
Gloster said her favorite moments are when campers personally tell her their new interest in being a dentist.
“That makes me really happy,” she said.
Participating high school campers Angel Murdaugh and Kristyana Keith said they both wanted to attend LAUNCH because of their interest in different healthcare career pathways, and the camp’s ability to introduce them to new topics.
“I just like being able to experience different stuff that I didn’t know about before,” said Murdaugh. “… I like seeing different options and having that choice, and I can meet new people.”
Keith said her favorite part of camp had to be learning unexpected and possibly useful life tidbits, but she thinks LAUNCH is significant because high schoolers are pressured to quickly decide on a career choice following graduation, and career exploration camps can help make the choice a little easier.
“All of our programs that we offer are free to students, and we will always maintain that, and the only way we’re able to do it is with amazing donors and partners,” said Broussard. “Students are able to touch actual medical equipment and it’s just really amazing to have the support of the community.”
To find out more about LAUNCH and its various programs for adolescents, visit: https://launchaugusta.com/
