The Health & Medicine Institute North Is Now Underway!
This week, 70 high school students from across Vermont are diving headfirst into the world of health care at the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont (GIV) Health & Medicine Institute North,
Hosted on the Lyndon campus of Vermont State University and co-led by Northern Vermont AHEC and GIV, this weeklong residential experience offers a hands-on, heart-pounding introduction to the world of health care. Participants arrived yesterday afternoon and wasted no time getting oriented – jumping into team-building activities, meeting their mentors, and previewing the fast-paced week ahead.
Running July 6–12, the program is designed to push students out of their comfort zones and into the action. Forget passive learning – this is tourniquets, trauma drills, and sutures. Students will rotate through clinical skills labs, perform mock diagnoses, dissect sheep organs, explore complex topics like trauma-informed care and mental health emergencies, and earn certifications in CPR, First Aid, and Stop the Bleed. Some will even leave with the Vermont Emergency First Responder (VEFR) credential in hand.
Throughout the week, they’ll also have the chance to meet and learn directly from healthcare professionals in a wide range of fields – from respiratory therapy to pharmacology, pathology, and wilderness medicine. They’ll explore cutting-edge tools like laparoscopic simulators and virtual anatomy labs, all while gaining insight into what it really takes to pursue a career in medicine or health science.
The grand finale? A Mass Casualty Simulation on Friday morning where students will put all their training to the test, triaging and treating role-played “victims” in a high-pressure, real-time emergency scenario.
Now underway, the Health & Medicine Institute North is more than just a summer program – it’s a launchpad. For many students, this week will mark the moment they realized: this is what I want to do.
To learn more about this program and its Southern Vermont counterpart, visit: https://giv.org/summer-institutes/health-medicine/
