Project Gives Girls Insight Into Science, Math Fields : Education: Kaiser Permanente joins the effort to give students chances to learn from professionals.

Spending time at Kaiser Permanente Medical Offices in Simi Valley each week for one month was supposed to help Erin O’Brien and Jennifer Albright make career choices as they approach college.

But the two Simi Valley High School seniors said they’ve learned so much about the health care profession, they’re not sure which area to study.

“I used to think ‘OK, I want to go into medicine. I can be a doctor, or I can be a nurse,’ ” said O’Brien, 18. “But there’s all kinds of doctors and all different types of nurses.”

Not to mention the myriad laboratory and X-ray technicians who work behind the scenes, added Albright, 18.

“It almost makes it harder to choose,” said Albright who wants to be a doctor of some kind.

As part of a school program designed to encourage girls to pursue careers in math, science and other non-traditional areas, the teen-agers spent two hours after school one day each week shadowing professionals at work.

The two girls were the first given the opportunity to follow health care employees on their appointed rounds for four weeks. Twelve other students in the program shadowed bankers, architects and engineers at work.

“The kids can learn the academics in the classroom, but here they see how it’s applied and they interact with adults other than teachers,” said Wally Boggess Jr., who teaches advanced placement biology and chemistry at the school.

School administrators hope to offer more students the chance to shadow medical workers next year by expanding the program to Simi Valley Hospital and Aspen Outpatient Clinic in Simi Valley, said Maurice McTague, a Simi Valley Unified School District administrative assistant who coordinates the project.

Simi Valley High School is one of only 18 in California to receive state grants to fund programs aimed at keeping girls in math and science classes in high school, when many stop studying those subjects, McTague said. Simi Valley High received two grants of $4,000 each.

Two years ago, O’Brien said another aspect of the program helped her when she started struggling with chemistry. Each week, a math or science teacher volunteers to staff a two-hour tutoring session for students needing help.

“I was saying ‘It’s too hard. I don’t understand.’ And someone said ‘You should come talk to Mr. Derrico, he can help you,’ ” O’Brien said, referring to Tom Derrico, one of the teachers who staffs the tutoring session.

Since then, O’Brien has completed advanced physiology, where students learned while working on cadavers, she said. After making it through that, nothing much bothers her, she said.

During their stint at Kaiser, the two students weren’t even phased while watching a 5-year-old boy get stitches in his head after being bitten by a dog, they said.

“After you see a cadaver, a little blood and stitches is no big deal,” O’Brien said.

But it was hard to see a woman getting the tip of her finger sewn back on after she diced it with a potato slicer, they said.

“They had to sew through her fingernail and she jumped,” O’Brien said.

“And we jumped,” Albright said.

Mostly, the two students watched routine office visits and followed the process through the lab, looking at throat cultures, learning how equipment works, and asking “about a million questions,” O’Brien said.

“It really shows you everything that’s involved when the patient leaves, and how important teamwork is,” Albright said.