One hundred and one, fifth and sixth year pupils from Lanarkshire and Glasgow schools attended the event, at the health board’s Medical Education Training Centre (METC) at Kirklands, Bothwell.
Caroline Burke, business support manager at the METC, said: “We receive hundreds of applications for work experience in medicine each year but it is impossible to provide everyone with a suitable placement.
“By organising this careers day within a state-of-the-art training facility, we could provide pupils who had expressed an interest in a medical career with life-like experiences of what it would be like to work in hospitals and deal with real medical emergencies.
“The pupils were able to witness the skills and experience of medical professionals which would not have been possible within a real hospital environment.
“Everyone who attended was very enthusiastic and it is definitely something that we would like to repeat in future.”
In addition to presentations from doctors and medical staff, pupils also participated in a variety of sessions with clinical teaching fellows demonstrating how medical staff would deal with a variety of situations.
These included how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), insert chest drains, apply plastercasts and deal with heart attacks and strokes.
Pupils even had the chance to try out some of these skills on state-of-the-art mannequins used in medical training.
Representatives from Glasgow University attended the event to provide advice and information on applying for places within their medical school.
Dr Alastair Cook, NHS Lanarkshire’s director of medical education, said: “The careers day was a great success and provided the pupils with some invaluable experiences. We hope it will help them decide if a career in medicine is for them.
“It was a wonderful opportunity for NHS Lanarkshire to promote the benefits of a medical or other healthcare career to young people from our local communities and to provide advice on applying for university places.”
