CLEVELAND — Saint Joseph Academy, an all-girls Catholic high school in Cleveland, is hosting a summer camp for middle school girls interested in becoming health care professionals when they are older.
The school is currently hosting the MASH summer camp program. MASH stands for Medical Applications of Science for Health.
The program is geared towards girls in grades six through eight who want to become future doctors, veterinarians or other health care professionals.
This week, the campers are learning the basics of CPR, practicing sutures on fake wounds and learning about human anatomy through a high-tech, touchscreen table.
"What else the girls will be doing is creating vision boards based on the goals and kind of experiences that they hope to achieve in their in their schooling and future," said Erin Hoffert, MASH camp director.
Saint Joseph Academy upperclassmen in the health science honors program are helping the younger girls in the camp, like senior Mary Gassman.
"Having camps like these, specifically for young girls, it gets them deeply rooted right away in their brain from like a young age, that there's so many other things you can do with knowledge like this," Gassman said.
Research shows that women only make up 28% of the workforce in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in the United States. A recent study by Team NEO showed similar numbers locally.
Camps like the one being held at Saint Joseph Academy have been noted as a possible solution to the help increase the number of women in the STEM workforce.
Saint Joseph Academy is already planning similar camps for next summer.
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