KOLD News 13 live, local and late breaking-Marana classroom becomes medical lab for the day

Marana classroom becomes medical lab for the day

By Mark Stine - email

It's a simple prick of the finger that can help save a patient's life and jump start a students career at the same time.

It's just like having a test at the doctors office, except this lab technician's a student and their office is a high school classroom.

Stephanie Serrano explained, "Today we're doing Lipid Profiles and that's pretty much just reading your cholesterol levels."

These Mountain View High students opened this one-day-only lab to test school staff and family members.

"It's important for people to know about cholesterol, so they can change it and fix heart disease and things like that. Heart disease is the number one killer in America," Mt. View senior Robin O'Neal said.

But it's not just to help these patients stay healthy, it's also giving the students real life experience for future jobs.

This med lab's just one of 20 different career and technical education programs Marana schools offer their students to make sure they're work ready after they graduate.

Rosemarie Prater, the med lab teacher, told KOLD, "It gives them a step up on the other people, even though there are shortages in the medical field, it still helps to start building your resume at a very young age."

Building their resumes with real life techniques, like communicating procedures with patients and counseling those patients on their results.

The students say this med lab experience makes learning in the classroom, not only educational, but fun. Serrano said, "I love trying to help people and you know, just the learning experience is great."