Fredonia Medical Academy promotes health care work for students, one suture at a time
In the basement of Fredonia Regional Hospital this summer, area high school students were learning how to suture using a pig’s foot, and in the process, perhaps stitching a path forward. The suturing, which. . .
In the basement of Fredonia Regional Hospital this summer, area high school students were learning how to suture using a pig’s foot, and in the process, perhaps stitching a path forward. The suturing, which can be used to close wounds or surgical incisions, was taught by Dr. Jennifer Bacani McKenney, a Fredonia native, the creator of the Fredonia Medical Academy and an owner of Fredonia Family Care. If McKenney’s name looksfamiliar, it should. She is well known in professional circles nationally and statewide, even running for lieutenant governor alongside Overland Park Mayor Curt Skoog on a platform that includes rural health care. But McKenney may be best known for her service as the Wilson County health officer amid the upheavals of the COVID-19 pandemic. McKenney started the academy in 2016 in the town of about 2,000 residents 100 miles or so south of Topeka with the aim of expanding the rural workforce, and with few exceptions, she has tried to have at least five students each year. The difficulty in attracting doctors, lawyers and other professionals to rural areas is a problem shot through with frustrations. Instead of recruitment, McKenney wanted to cultivate local talent. “There’s various ways that we can solve the workforce problems,” McKenney said. “One of the solutions is growing our own. That means from kindergarten, we should be telling students what they can be and what jobs they can have. ”McKenney also hopes to expand her students’ perspectives. ”I think students oftentimes don’t know what’s out there,” McKenney said. “They hear about doctors and nurses. But it’s really cool to be a lab tech or radiology tech, and you get paid pretty well. ”Usually between five and eight students participate, except this summer, when she had 12 students. According to McKenney, about 80% of graduates have gone on to various careers in health care. Fredonia Medical Academy student Elin Odell asks a question before the students begin praciticing sutures. Credit:Selena Rivas FavelaEncouraging a careerElla Green, who attended the academy in 2022, became a certified nursing assistant in her junior year of high school, and then a certified medical assistant after graduating high school. Green went on to earn her EMT certification at Neosho County Community College in Chanute, 30 miles away from Fredonia. She credits the academy with helping her decide on a medical specialty. “Through the hands-on experiences and exposure to various health care careers, I discovered that emergency medical services was the path that interested me the most,” Green said in an email. “The program played a major role in shaping my decision to become an EMT by showing me how much I enjoy helping people in fast-paced emergencies. ”Cooper Odell, who attended in 2016 and 2017, knew he wanted to go into the health care field but wasn’t sure what direction he wanted to take. “(The academy) really exposed me to all the different fields and the opportunities in each different area,” Odell said. “That kind of led me toward medicine in general, whether that be a doctor, pharmacist. ”Odell chose pharmacy as his career path in college and is a third-year student at the KU School of Pharmacy. Brenna Moya, who attended in 2018 and 2019, is now a third-year student at the KU School of Medicine in Salina, which is a rural-focused campus. Moya was a Rural Scholar in Health, which is an early acceptance program offered through the school. ”The medical academy at the time was a really good stepping stone in terms of what I wanted to do in health care,” Moya said. “I honestly wasn’t even sure if medical school or higher level of education was actually something that was really realistic for me. It felt like a really big and distant goal at the time, especially when you’re in a small town. ”Moya credits McKenney and the academy for showing her that having a job in health care and going to medical school was realistic. “It gave me encouragement,” she said. “It gave me support to keep doing what I’m doing. I still think of it to this day, it helps me believe in myself, giving me a really good foundation that I’ve been able to grow on. ”Moya mentioned that one of the aspects of the medical academy that continues to resonate is its rural setting. “Health care, in general is such a treasure, but I think rural health care, especially, is a treasure,” Moya said. “Seeing physicians, they not only care for communities and their patients within the hospital, but they also are involved in their community as a whole and within itself. ”Jordan and Jaden Schmidt, who attended the academy in 2017 and 2018, said it solidified their paths in health care too. Jordan, who is currently in her fourth year at the KU School of Pharmacy, said that she wanted to have a career that was health care related to be able to care for patients. “It showed me a bunch of different career opportunities that are within the health care setting,” She said. “I had kind of always thought about pharmacy in high school … but with the medical academy, I actually kind of changed my thoughts over to potentially doing family medicine just because of Dr. McKenney and her influence on the academy, but then also just on me as an individual. But, then I realized I don’t like blood. ”With that in mind, Schmidt went back to the pharmacy track. “I still get that patient interaction, but I deal a lot more with medications and vaccines and things along those lines,” she said. Her husband, Jaden, is a physical therapy assistant and said that with his academy experience, he knew he wanted to be in the health care space in some regard. “It was good exposure to different fields that I wouldn’t have thought about otherwise,” He said. “It kind of solidified that I did want to be in that field, or working with people, working with the human body. ”Once Jordan is done with school, she and Jaden plan on moving back to a rural area. Jordan plans to work in a community pharmacy. Welcoming students homeMcKenney said that it’s been really exciting to watch her former students go into the professions they have talked about while they were in the academy. Although the academy is geared toward a path in health care, McKenney said that she has also seen former students who participated in the academy and decided not to go that route. “It’s good for them to have that experience,” McKenney said. “I think this academy is as important for knowing what you want to do and what you don’t want to do. ”When it comes to health care in rural Kansas, McKenney thinks that if more small communities had something similar to the academy, more students would understand how they could serve their small towns as professionals. McKenney mentioned that the first class of students in the academy presented about the academy and what students did in the program to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and presented to the Kansas Academy of Family Physicians. She also thinks many students who are in high school or are about to finish high school don’t get exposure to certain fields. There are many jobs that are needed in rural areas or just go unfilled. “If we’re encouraging everybody at a young age and showing them, I think our odds would be a lot better for not having workforce issues,” she said. McKenney said that the program has absolutely been a success with a good majority of graduates pursuing some sort of career in health care. “But it’s also about teaching students what they don’t want to do in their careers,” McKenney emphasized in an email response. “So even if not 100% go into health care fields, anytime we can give students this kind of exposure to careers and experience, it’s a good thing. ”When asked about what it would take for another community to start something similar to the Fredonia Medical Academy, McKenney said the key partnership is between the high school and a local hospital, but for others, it could be the school and a local clinic. McKenney said that the second piece that a community would need to start a similar initiative is a connector. “I put together the whole schedule, so I want to make sure that the kids have a really good, well-rounded, diverse experience,” McKenney said. When asked what limitations would keep a community from trying to start a similar initiative, McKenney said it has to start in the school system. She credits her positions in both the hospital and on the Fredonia School Board with the easy formation of the program. A lack of understanding within a hospital or health care system about the importance of the workforce and growing your own would lead to failure, she said. McKenney said that rural areas would be wise to introduce young people to careers like health care that would allow them to contribute to their communities. “If we’re not welcoming people to have careers in our towns, we shouldn’t be surprised that they leave and go to school and don’t come back. ”Disclosure: Jennifer Bacani McKenney serves as vice chair of the board directors for the Kansas Health Foundation, which funds the Kansas Leadership Center, publisher of The Journal. Recent StoriesRepublish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.