DAVENPORT, Iowa (KWQC) – While some kids spend their summer relaxing, some are learning what it takes to save lives.
Education, experience and excitement are filling the minds of high school students in the MercyOne Genesis Adventures in Nursing camp.
The week-long camp engages students directly with nursing and health care opportunities with a hands-on approach.
“There’s so many aspects of medicine that I don’t think everybody really realizes,” Morgan Joseph, a trauma coordinator at MercyOne Genesis, said. “A lot of them think doctor and nurse.”
Joseph said the camp exposes students to different medical fields they might not have known about.
One of those fields was emergency medicine. On Wednesday, students participated in a mock trauma drill with a mock patient with pretend injuries.
“It’s very hands-on,” Lluvia Ayala, a Moline High School senior, said. “Like today we got to experience a real person pretending to be in a car accident.”
Ayala said the students helped the patient move and pretended to administer medicine. On Tuesday, she said they also practiced putting in an IV.
Organizers said students don’t just learn to treat injuries during the camp, they learn to treat people.
“The most important thing I learned today was patience,” Sydney Ross, a Geneseo High School senior said. “Because they’re also going through something like really hard on them.”
The camp has provided educational opportunities since the early 2000s.
This year’s camp runs through Friday.
Copyright 2026 KWQC. All rights reserved.
