The interest and enthusiasm were palpable. This is how it is when young people burst onto the scene with their load of curiosity and thirst for knowledge.
And so it was in the Hospital Trust “Sant'Anna e San Sebastiano” in Caserta, which opened the doors of the operating rooms to the students of the Alessandro Manzoni Biomedical Scientific High School for an interactive training course.
The initiative, developed in the context of collaboration and constructive dialogue between Healthcare and School, was encouraged by the Management of the AORN of Caserta and the Liceo Manzoni to offer students the opportunity to learn on the field, living a concrete and tangible experience of a hospital environment.
Classes 3BS and 4BS, led by the school principal, Adele Vairo, with teachers Michele Cecaro and Barbara De Rosa, were welcomed in the main hall by a welcome message from the Company Management and the director of the Emergency and Admissions Department, Gaetano Bruno, by the head of the Operating Rooms and Post-Operative Intensive Care Unit, Concetta Gallo, and by the head of the Vertebromedullary Neurosurgery Unit, Alessandra Alfieri, organizer of the event.
There are two sessions during the day.
In the first, the boys were introduced to the structure of the operating block with the rules and principles of dressing and sterility. Some of them were able to simulate spinal stabilization interventions on a spinal model.
In the second, aware that no textbook and no theoretical explanation could replace direct experience in the field, the students learned about operating rooms and the delicate work of doctors and nurses.
They were shown the path that the surgical patient goes through, from premedication to anesthesia, with the details of the methods and devices adopted, to the operation. They looked at the surgical instruments: the traditional ones, such as the scalpel, and the high-tech ones, sophisticated equipment such as the operating microscope, the endoscopic column, the neuronavigation, which they were particularly passionate about having been able to carry out a simulation on a cranial model.
“Involving high school students in practical training - highlighted the director of the Emergency and Acceptance Department, Bruno - means for the AORN of Caserta to contribute to sowing fertile ground in view of a profitable harvest.
It means helping the very young who intend to undertake studies and work in the health professions to familiarize themselves with the complexity and charm of this world, always valuing humanity in taking care of sick people".
Along the same lines, the school principal, Vairo: "Learning does not end at school: it is nourished by experiences, by contact with reality, by direct observation. Seeing the Biomedico of Manzoni enter the operating rooms is the demonstration of how our educational offer aims at excellence and professionalism".
During their educational journey, the students were tutored by nursing staff in the sector.
In closing, the Caserta Hospital Company gave the students of the Manzoni High School a certificate of participation, as a seal of the event.
Article published on March 26, 2025 - 14pm
The initiative to open the operating rooms to students was a positive thing, but there were some problems with communication between the staff and the students, maybe it could have been clearer in the messages.