Teenagers on an internship to discover health professions

2023-07-28 13:57:40

Eliane Burroughs, 16, doesn’t know what job she wants to do. She signed up for Explore your healthy future, a program launched this summer by the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal and aimed at young people aged 14 to 22. For two days, the teenager followed a psychologist, a psychoeducator, a social worker and a technician in special education at the University Institute in Mental Health of Montreal (IUSMM) in order to discover their daily life.

“Me, I want to know what really happens when you remove the cinema end [de la profession de psychologue] : the typical armchair where you talk to the wall and there is someone next to it. I know that’s not it, but I don’t have another image of what it really is, in reality, ”said Eliane Burroughs, met on Wednesday at the start of her internship.

This is the objective of the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal: to introduce young people to the different professions in the health network in the hope of recruiting them in the future. During the month of July, 180 participants aged 14 to 22 accompanied various professionals in the field, such as occupational therapists, physiotherapists, nutritionists, nurses, mechanical engineers, architects and pharmacists.

“Amazingly, we have a lot more young people participating than we originally planned. I would say double that,” says Marie-Paule Minissié, personnel management officer at the CIUSSS Internship and Student Succession Service.

The Montreal health establishment promoted its new initiative to its staff. “eighty-five percent of young people are children and acquaintances of employees of the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, and 15% are young people from certain colleges in the east of Montreal , where we set up a kiosk and presented the project,” says Marie-Paule Minissié.

Counter the labor shortage

When passing the Duty at the IUSMM, the psychologist Maria Beatriz Alvarez welcomed two young people — including Eliane Burroughs — to the external geriatric psychiatry service where she works. She considers the program relevant in the context of the current labor shortage. “It helps to demystify [la profession de psychologue]to see what’s going on behind the scenes,” she says.

Young people cannot attend psychotherapy sessions, for reasons of confidentiality. “But I’m going to show them around the facilities and answer their questions,” she said. It will surely help them in their reflection on what they want to do later. »

Eliane Burroughs knows nothing about the world of geriatric psychiatry. She claims to have never really been in contact with elders. “Except my grandparents,” she says. However, she says she is open to learning more about this clientele.

The people who are 80 or 90 years old, they knew what was here the asylum [psychiatrique Saint-Jean-deDieu]. If they did not come themselves, they knew someone who was lodged there. It’s very taboo.

According to Dolorès Pleau, psychologist at the external geriatric psychiatry service, mental health problems are less and less taboo among septuagenarians (baby boomers), but remain so among older people. “People who are 80 or 90 years old, they have known what was the asylum here [psychiatrique Saint-Jean-de-Dieu]. If they did not come themselves, they knew someone who was lodged there. It’s very taboo. Founded in 1875, the Saint-Jean-de-Dieu hospice became the Louis-Hippolyte-Lafontaine hospital in 1975, then the IUSMM in 2013.

Elyse Moss, nurse at the IUSMM, highlights the open-mindedness of the new generation participating in the Explore your healthy future program. At the Concurrent Disorders Clinic, where she works, patients suffer from mental health issues (schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, etc.) and addiction to substance abuse. Homeless people are particularly among its clientele.

“In my time, you shouldn’t talk too much about certain taboo subjects: ‘Ah! You use drugs…”, “Ah! You are homosexual…”, “Ah! You are transgender…” observes the 45-year-old nurse. Nowadays, it is made normalized. Young people want to abolish all these mosus of taboos. It’s going to make them other mega assets in mental health. »