Dr. Karen Rogers speaks to a group of UTC students at the Erlanger Baroness Hospital job shadowing orientation. Photo by Angela Foster.
Not many undergraduate students can say they have been behind the scenes in an emergency room.
After the spring semester, 76 students spanning 11 majors at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga will say they have.
The opportunity for UTC students to job shadow in the Erlanger Baroness Hospital Emergency Department came about thanks to a partnership between the UTC pre-health advising program, Erlanger and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine – Chattanooga.
Theresa Blackman, UTC assistant director of pre-health student services and an advisor in the College of Arts and Sciences, said that not many students can get real-world experience in medical settings despite the competitiveness of health care-related fields.
“One of the big things that professionals in health care like to see is that students have clinical experience,” she said. “When they have seen what it’s like to be in the thick of it, they know what is expected of a physician.”
Erlanger emergency medicine resident Dr. Andy Glass served as a mentor for the shadowing students.
As someone who only finished medical school two years ago, Glass felt a connection with the UTC students.
“From the standpoint of having college students that are interested in medicine, I’m not so far removed that I don’t remember what that was like,” said Glass, a 2022 graduate of the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. “When you’re trying to decide on a career in medicine, the more exposure that you have, the easier that decision is.”
He also said that many students go through their educational career in medicine without any experience in the specialties they’re interested in. With shadowing opportunities, students can peek into specialties and get one-on-one advice from those physicians.
“Those opportunities left an imprint more than anything in the classroom could have,” Glass said. “When you’re in school, especially in college, you’re learning basic sciences, but you don’t get the opportunity to really see what the job is like.”
UTC junior Carli Todd, a pre-professional biochemistry major from Cleveland, Tennessee, never stepped foot in an emergency room prior to this program.
Carli Todd
Despite having previous shadowing experience in hospitals, Todd said she hadn’t been interested in emergency medicine.
“I thought maybe it’d be too high-strung for me,” she said.
Seeking more shadowing opportunities, she signed up for four shifts at Erlanger, with shifts from 4-8 p.m. and 8 p.m.-midnight.
“The different times that I was there I saw completely different things,” Todd said. “It really depends on the time of day. Trauma cases come through all hours of the day.”
While shadowing in the ER, she said she saw cases that showed her what emergency medicine is really like.
She even saw a patient’s life saved through CPR.
“I thought I’d be a little intimidated at first but it was really cool to see how everybody works together to save a life,” she said. “To actually see it in action in the hospital was really surreal.
“Everybody has a clear role and how they all call out to each other.”
Also in search of clinical experience, junior Jackson Hurst, a pre-professional biology major from Johnson City, Tennessee, knew that this may be his only chance for an experience like this one.
“I’ve volunteered outside the children’s ER,” Hurst said. “Being in the ER was totally different. You can see everything that they’re actually going through.”
He said one of the most appealing things about shadowing in the ER is seeing the doctors in action during high-stress situations.
“I got to work with some doctors who are really skilled,” he said. “One of them was completely fluent in Spanish and it was cool to see him handle emergency situations with Spanish-speaking patients.”
From stitches to a stroke patient, Hurst noted the doctors’ abilities to meet the demands of every single patient.
“I learned that not only do you have to equip yourself with the knowledge of a doctor like they do, but also the readiness to handle situations,” he said. “There’s such a wide range of things that come into the ER, like someone bumps their head or someone is dying.”
Kayeden Milne, from Nolensville, Tennessee, graduated from UTC in August 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in pre-professional biology—but participated in the program this semester.
Kayeden Milne
Her next step is medical school to pursue emergency medicine, pediatrics or surgery.
“You kind of just get thrown into it,” she said about the shadowing experience.
While in the ER, Milne saw several new things that she said made her even more excited about a potential career in emergency medicine.
“There was a patient getting intubated,” she said. “It was really cool to get a close look and see that process because that’s something that I’ll have to learn in the future.
“I call it a goldmine for knowledge and for medicine in general.”
She encountered one patient who did not survive.
“It’s pretty wild to experience as somebody that’s going into medicine,” she said. “You get to see the rawness of medicine.”
The job shadowing collaboration was coordinated by Blackman, Erlanger Clinical Resource Coordinator Kathy Emerson and Dr. Karen Rogers, an emergency medicine physician at Erlanger.
“Job shadowing offers an opportunity for individuals to check the reality of a career in health care against the perceptions created by television and movies,” Emerson said.
Rogers said that Erlanger recognizes the talent pool at UTC, which they view as the future of health care in the community.
“Our hope is that by investing in them early and providing some mentorship and guidance, many will choose to study and train here with us at UTHSC (the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine – Chattanooga) and eventually remain here to serve patients in the area,” Rogers said.
She expressed her enthusiasm for working with the students.
“I’ve enjoyed meeting the students and hearing their stories,” she said. “They are so motivated and excited and give me so much hope for the future. It’s been fun to watch them see their first trauma resuscitation or how we interact with difficult patients.”
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UTC Pre-Health Professions Advising
Partnership with Erlanger providing job shadowing experience for 76 UTC students
