Isobel Hastings
St Martin’s Lutheran College students got a taste of the working world, with year 10 students doing work experience last week.
Work experience is an opportunity for students to enter a workplace and learn more about a career and provide them with opportunities and information of potential careers.
Ezekiel Coutts chose his placement at the Mount Gambier and Districts Health Service to pursue further his passion to help others in need.
“I have polycystic kidney disease and I’ve been going to the hospitals the day I was born, so I’ve been interested in that stuff since then,” he said.
“I wanted to help people that are sick because I understand what they’ve been through.”
He said he has autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease (ARPKD), which is a rare genetic disorder that affects 1 in 20,000 children.
When asked about his favourite part about working in the hospital, Ezekiel said he enjoyed helping with tasks like reading blood pressure and monitoring blood sugar.
He said he helped remove a patient’s dressing, and said he loved doing it.
Ezekiel was asked if there was anything he experienced during the placement that he did not expect, and he said he didn’t expect to do any of it.
He said that he thought he and his other classmates would stay in their group and watch things, and possibly get involved in smaller tasks.
“But what actually happened, we got given a roster of what ward we’re going to be in and got a tour of the hospital, and then we got split up into our groups and did all of our different things,” he said.
Ezekiel said that his experiences had reinforced his love for healthcare in all different fields.
“I was in the surgical ward on day one and I thought, “Oh, surgical ward means surgery, so it’s going to be all about gore,” he said
“Not really, it’s actually not like that and so it did change my perception of that type of ward.”
He then explained that the whole placement has strengthened his thoughts and feelings about healthcare and his desire to pursue employment in that field.
“It’s just made me more willing to put more effort into achieving the goal,” he said.
For Ezekiel Coutts, work experience has been an enjoyable experience, informing him of the opportunities in healthcare and further strengthening his desire to help anyone who walks through the door.
