Junior Rachel Davis sits in her car waiting patiently to go inside of the Center for Academic Achievement for her medical science class every day. She glances at the clock, waiting for junior Paige Stanfield to arrive, as the two walk into class together each time.
Stanfield pulls into the parking lot and sees her opportunity. She sneaks up to Davis’s car and scares Davis by slapping the windows. Davis jumped as this was unexpected and had scared her.
“Every time I pull in, she’s always in her car waiting,” Stanfield said. “Then one time I pulled up and scared her, [she got] really scared, [now] she doesn’t fall for it anymore.”
This became a continuous prank between the two friends, as they constantly laugh at the ongoing joke, while walking into medical health science class together.
According to the Center for Academic Achievement, the CAA is a unique campus for students that are hoping to gain real world experience and hands-on learning. It is offered to all students in the Shawnee Mission school district, and there are prerequisite classes needed to be taken before applying.
Each of them took the semester-long Exploring Medical Careers class that is offered at East their sophomore year.
Davis and Stanfield are fascinated by the medical field, Stanfield hopes to become an orthopedic surgeon specialized in sports medicine, and Davis hopes to become a pediatrician or an oncologist. They hope that taking classes at the CAA can help them pursue their dream of becoming doctors.
“I felt like I’ve always wanted to be in the medical field,” Davis said. “Then [on] our eighth grade field trip we heard about their medical [program], so it was always something I wanted to do because I thought it was a good experience.”
Stanfield heard about this program from East’s athletic trainer, Dakota Gelsheimer-Orlando. Stanfield’s mom was also a huge influence in Stanfield’s passion for medical health studies, as she used to be a nurse.
Their classes each day differ as one day they could be doing a simulation lab with mannequins, taking their pulses, and the next they are taking notes. While there’s no homework for the class the two are always preparing for the next lab or studying for an upcoming test.
Stanfield and Davis have known each other for years through school but spending countless hours in a lab at the CAA have brought the two closer.
“I’m always texting her, she gets so annoyed,” Stanfield said. “Like, what time is the CAA today? Even though it’s the same thing every day. So it’s just like, funny jokes like that. And then also, like, if we miss a day we can [help each other out].”
Stanfield has already been accepted and will be attending the University of Alabama to play softball; she hopes to major in kinesiology or psychology, to be on track to her future career. Since already playing a sport in college, her parents had told her this would be a very possible and reasonable option to be able to work her way up to her career.
Additionally, Davis is taking anatomy this semester, it is a required class to continue doing the program that the CAA offers for seniors. By taking this class at East, she will be able to go to the CAA next year as a senior for her second year.
Since the medical science program takes up three class periods, Davis and Stanfield don’t have any room to take any electives at East. Davis takes her English class at the CAA so that she is able to take Spanish at East.
“It’s been really cool to just do what I want to do in the real world, versus sitting for hours in pre-calc,” Davis said. “It’s really like what am I going to do with this in my life?”
Even though much of their school day is taken up by the CAA program, they both enjoy getting the break from sitting at a desk, and instead working on a hand-on-lab using realistic mannequins and real life scenarios.
“I just had always wanted to help people, and I couldn’t ever imagine myself sitting in a desk job, doing that all day,” Davis said.
The program has also been helpful for Stanfield and Davis to discover what they want to do in the future.
“It’s helped me because I get a head start versus a lot of people whose first experiences [with their major] is in college,” Davis said. “And it’s also helped solidify my beliefs.”
