FACT: Hemorrhaging is the #1 preventable cause of death after injury.
FACT: 6th-8th graders at Pimlico Elementary / Middle School have the knowledge and skills to save a life, thanks to their “Stop the Bleed” training through the school’s unique Pimlico/Sinai Middle Grades Health Science Program, a three-year partnership with LifeBridge Health and Sinai Hospital.
On February 23, James Gannon, Sinai’s trauma program manager, three Sinai clinicians and the hospital’s Health Science Program Liaison visited Pimlico to teach students life- and first-aid skills through very hands-on lessons. Students practiced deep compressions on fake legs and arms, teaching tools brought by Gannon and his Sinai colleagues.
This was the first time students enrolled in the Pimlico/Sinai Middle Grades Health Science Program learned the “Stop the Bleed” program designed by the American College of Surgeons.
Watch the CBS News Baltimore video on the “Stop the Bleed” lesson at Pimlico.
The Mission of the Pimlico/Sinai Middle Grades Health Science Program
Giving students a first-hand look at careers in the healthcare industry is at the center of the Pimlico/Sinai Middle Grades Health Science Program. Launched in 2020-21, the program offers such opportunities as hospital tours, enjoy demonstrations, lectures, and workshops presented by Sinai clinicians.
Matthew Owens, Pimlico’s Science Lead Teacher and 7th Grade Science Teacher, has taught science at the school for eight years. Pimlico is the newest school operated by the Baltimore Curriculum Project (BCP), Maryland’s largest and longest-running operator of neighborhood charter schools, joining BCP two years ago.
For Owens, watching students embrace the techniques, skills, and purpose behind the “Stop the Bleed” lesson is exciting.
There are two parts that are critical within Stop the Bleed. It’s the combination of content and method, which makes the experience so impactful. The content begins with being alert to accurately assess the situation, address the situation with the proper technique by packing the wound and applying pressure or by applying a tourniquet.
Students learn the method through the acronym, ABC: Alert; Bleeding; and Compression. “Finding effective and efficient ways for students to retrieve what they have stored in the brain is vital,” Owens adds. “Hopefully in the future students find their own ways to enhance the storage-retrieval relationship.”
Life-saving and Life Skills
While the first-aid skills students learn may save someone’s life, Owens also acknowledges the “softer” yet just-as-important skills his students are gaining through the Pimlico/Sinai Middle Grades Health Science Program. “I have seen students’ self-awareness and self-esteem grow as they participate in the Health Science Program,” he says of the free program offered at Pimlico. “They know they are leaders within the school as program participants.”
He watches his students gain exposure to the hospital setting and healthcare professionals, thus gaining experience with using terminology to communicate with professionals in the field. “These experiences help grow confidence because they are speaking the language of health science with professionals, which make them feel like they are scientists as well and that a future in healthcare is possible,” he says.
As an educator, Owens sees the immediate and future impact of the program for his students: “The most exciting aspect of the program is seeing how practical knowledge leads to informed decisions in the future. The lessons they learn must have applicability to their current condition. They must be relevant. Part of my job is to show how what they learn impacts them currently and can lead to other opportunities.”
“For example, we learned about the layers of skin. As a project we developed skin care products with the purpose of either moisturizing the skin, protecting the skin, or addressing a skin condition. With this type of knowledge, students can then scrutinize the claims of other skin care products. They can also use this experience to become entrepreneurs for skincare products or decide to become dermatologists.”
