A trip to the hospital may not sound like fun, but for Cowart Elementary first-graders, the trip Thursday to Let’s Pretend Hospital was super.

The mock-hospital hosted by the Calhoun Community College Nursing Program took elementary students on a superhero-themed tour through each stage of the hospital, from admission to discharge where they learned what to expect as a hospital patient.

Student experiences

When Sharon Cook’s class arrived at the emergency room, student Maddie Stoner helped the nurses treat a stuffed gorilla.

Stoner learned how to listen to the gorilla’s heart, take its temperature and check blood pressure. She said her favorite station was the surgery room because her cousin was a nursing student who pretended to be a doctor.

She said she learned the most when they talked about what organs are in the human body.

“The biggest thing I learned is in the room where we had the big puppet and we learned about the stuff inside our bodies and the digestive system,” she said.

Not every station took place in the hospital — one station was what happens in an ambulance and one was an informational station about when to call 911 and what to do in a fire.

Students learned how to stop, drop and roll — something they all seemed to enjoy.

Evette Ramos said learning about fire safety and meeting Sparky the fire dog was a high point of the trip.

“I learned about germs, got to meet a firefighter, and met Sparky,” she said. “My favorite part was when I got to be Juan’s mom.”

At the admitting station, Juan Larios sat in a wheelchair while Ramos, his pretend mother, and Clay Klein, his pretend father, learned what happens when a patient is admitted.

Klein said he enjoyed being Larios’ father and that he and Ramos were pretend married for 26 years, but he most enjoyed the fire safety.

“You have to go outside and call, don’t just stay in the house and call,” he said.

Ramos said after the visit, he won’t be scared if he has to go to the hospital.

As an elementary teacher, Cook goes to the event every year.

“I love the program. It’s very thorough and the rooms are the same every year,” she said. “They always decorate and make it fun with music and dancing.”

One thing different that Cook noticed this year was the bat cave from Batman that students walked through at the entrance to the hospital and the life-size Operation game in a hallway between stations.

“They make it fun and give (students) an idea of what the things are that happen at a hospital, what a procedure is, what you go through,” she said. “They really like it with (nursing students) calling on people to be different volunteers. They all got a hospital coloring book at the end to take home.”

Hospital history

For 17 years, Calhoun has partnered with Decatur General Hospital and Athens-Limestone Hospital to bring a lighthearted, age-friendly education program to the Decatur campus.

“The idea is to create an experience for first-graders so when they go to the hospital, not everything about it is bad,” said Calhoun’s Health Sciences dean Bret McGill.

Students not only learn about the workings of a hospital but they get to sing and dance at the stations too.

McGill said it benefits nursing students as much as the first-graders because it helps them learn how to treat pediatric patients.

The event is free for elementary students and the cost to make it happen is split between the college and hospitals.

The nursing students get to be creative when it comes to the decorations and themes for the stations.

“It takes about a year to plan,” McGill said. “I’ve been here since 2008 and the theme changes every year. Every group of nursing students bring a different flavor and ideas for the hospital.”