FAST FORWARD: COLISEUM HEALTH SYSTEM
A Fast Forward Sing-A-Long:
SUSAN: The foot bone's connected to the anklebone.
SHERRIE: The knee bone's connected to the hipbone.
RYAN: The Hipbone's connect to the...pelvis (LAUGH)
ROBIN: The knee bones connected to the anklebone-possibly...
RYAN: You see I'm an orthopedic nurse so I want to list the actual bones... S1's connected to S2...
SARA: You put your left foot in; you put your left foot out and that's it's all about...
(TITLE SEQUENCE)
VO: Welcome to another episode of Fast Forward. Today we're Macon our way to a town just south of Atlanta to visit one of the area's biggest employer's--Coliseum Health Systems. I'll let some of their employees fill you in.
ROBIN: Coliseum Health Systems is based in Macon, GA and we have 3 facilities in Macon- Coliseum Medical Centers, Coliseum Northside Hospital and Coliseum Center For Behavioral Health. All total, we have about 1,350 employees, and over 400 physicians on our medical staff.
SHERRIE: I'm a certified nursing assistant. CNA's do any and everything. We're physical therapists. We're secretaries. We do it all.
RYAN: I'm an RN. I'm the clinical coordinator for the orthopedic spine floor.
SARA: I am a monitor technician for the hospital. I monitor the EKG's from the ICU...
LEAH: I'm a medical technologist. That means I work in the laboratory and run tests on patient specimens in the lab.
VO: While we're talking about lab work, I've always wondered what they're looking for when they test people's urine. So...
LEAH: Urine store for a teachable moment about your pee.
VO: See what we did there?
(PRICE IS RIGHT LOSER SOUND)
VO: Yeah. I know. Let's just find out why they test urine.
SHERRIE: It indicates a lot of things...if your potassium is low, if you're sodium is low, if you're under the influence.
RYAN: Also if there's an infection, you can tell by increased white blood cell count, or bacteria in the urine or blood.
VO: But wait! That's not all! Just the color of your urine is useful information.
LEAH: It'll be a lighter yellow color if you've had enough water...and darker if you have not and are becoming dehydrated...
VO: And so-
LEAH: Your pee is who you are.
SHERRIE: This is the weirdest teachable moment we have had. (SMILE)
VO: Agreed. So let's get back to Coliseum. When you think about jobs in hospitals, most people think of doctors. But there are a lot of other jobs too. So let's get a little more info on those.
ROBIN: In the healthcare field, the different types of jobs require different degrees. For instance you may just need a high school degree to perform some jobs in a hospital. Some jobs may require an under graduate degree and some may need a specialty degree; perhaps you can get from a tech school to perform that particular job in the healthcare field.
Nurses make up a majority of the employees, but we have lots of other jobs at Coliseum. For instance we have techs, or certified nursing assistants
VARIOUS: Unit secretary, respiratory therapy, environmental services, radiology...you could be a dietician, ultrasound technician...people that work in the lab, pharmacy, physical therapist, phlebotomist...different diagnostic services, occupational therapist, medical assistant...
ROBIN: So there is a wide range of people who work at Coliseum Health Systems.
SUSAN: There's a very large demand for nurses, so nursing is a very good field to go into cause you're almost guaranteed a job.
VO: So how did you get into the medical field?
SHERRIE: I actually got certified in 11th grade. It's just a passion. Some people have a passion for taking care of other people and that's the reason why I got this job and I started working as a Certified-nursing assistant.
RYAN: My wife always knew she wanted to be a nurse. So I started doing research on it and thought this is a great way to make a living. Then I realized real quick that you have to really want to be in this profession. It's not just a shift job where you go to work and you're done. You really have to own it. You have to love it. You can't just show up and be absent.
VO: So I guess when you were kids, you just loved playing that game Operation. (BUZZER SOUND)
RYAN: Yes I did actually. I loved playing that game
SUSAN: I was pretty good at it. I was pretty good at operation. (LAUGHS)
JONI: When I was a kid, Operation was one of my favorite games. My favorite part was actually hearing the buzz.
(MAN SCREAMS)
JONI: I killed him all the time. (LAUGHS)
VO: Okay, seriously. What's the best thing about working in healthcare?
ROBIN: What's great about the healthcare field is that you feel like you're providing a great service to people. If your hospital is good, which ours is, then you feel like you're really doing a good thing.
SHERRIE: There was a patient I was feeding and she stopped breathing as I was feeding her. Then her mouth started to turn purple and blue. And then we called for the nurse to come in and the doctor had got in there and I got out the way. She ended up living. She survived. And it was a blessing that day for me, because she was just talking to me and was just calm, then in the blink of an eye somebody could stop breathing. So that was a day I'll never forget.
VO: Wow, great story, Sherrie. And that's why you get to bring us home, the same way we started.
SHERRIE: The shoulder bones connected to the head bone...There are all the bones! (LAUGHS)
Please don't put that in there cause that was so wrong.
VO: Don't worry; we won't just know you're invited back to sing with us anytime. Until then, we'll see the rest of you on our next episode of Fast Forward.
