Sounds of beeps flooded the back of the ambulance as the van bumped down the highway. They had just picked up a woman who was lying on the side of the road, and senior Selva Al Khalil was tasked with writing the report and checking the EKG.
However, once positioned next to the stretcher, she was lunged at, causing her to stumble backwards. To most, stressful situations like this made people steer clear of the medical field. But for Al Khalil, it was exactly what she was made for.
“I like the fast-paced environment, and being one of the people to be dependable and get the job done,” Al Khalil said. “I just love it. You see some heavy-hitting things.”
During her sophomore year, Al Khalil took medical terminology with Kingwood High School teacher Amy Bowman. In class, Bowman talked about her experience in critical care.
This was what inspired Al Khalil to pursue being an ICU physician.
“Bowman would tell her stories from her time working in EMS,” Al Khalil said. “I was like ‘How does that even happen?’ It was crazy stories, but I also kind of want those kinds of stories.”
The class is a dual credit course, meaning that it contains college and high school grades. Students go through 41 chapters of content.
While this is the bulk of the class, the part that Al Khalil enjoys the most is being in the field, working 12-24 hour shifts required for the class.
“We work with real EMTs and paramedics,” Al Khalil said. “You kind of get prepared to jump into work during the year and also after high school.”
She picked up her first shift in the fall after her classmate dropped it. The hours were from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and she was working one month sooner than she was prepared for, making her first shift a bit of a learning curve.
“I kind of felt lost because I jumped into it early,” Al Khalil said. “I got a tour of the ambulance. The shift wasn’t really that crazy, I just had to make sure to ask a lot of questions.
She has worked six shifts total, with one being as long as 24 hours. Even with downtime between calls, these shifts can be exhausting, and she learns new things each time.
Al Khalil has loved the challenge.
“That shift was actually my favorite one,” Al Khalil said. “They taught me a lot and let me work on someone who was not critical. They were super cool.”
As of now, she has worked a total of six shifts, where she has completed almost 14 total transports.
“I was dispatched to a lady who got side-swiped by an 18 wheeler after she was drinking,” Al Khalil said. “She couldn’t control herself. She didn’t know what she was doing. She said that her husband was trying to kill her. It was really emotional.”
The silver lining of these stories is that she can always take away a lesson from each dispatch. Being thrown into these situations now helps prepare her for her future career.
“You never know what you’re gonna come up to,” Al Khalil said. “Not every situation is going to be textbook. There are people that need help that have other factors that might not let you help them. You need to have patience and have kind of a strong guard.”
Senior Alec Krippel and Al Khalil carpool everyday to the period. Although the classwork can be difficult and stressful, having each other has made the experience a lot easier.
“If I didn’t have Selva in there, I would’ve dropped the class in the first nine weeks,” Krippel said. “She’s definitely made the year a lot better in regards to the class.”
After high school, she plans to attend UT and room with her friend senior Emily Le. She hopes to get her undergraduate in public health or biochemistry, and then attend Texas A&M or Johns Hopkins for graduate school.
“She’s going to be a great healthcare professional,” health teacher Kevin Caizley. “She has a lot of potential, so if she wants to go as far as she can, she has every attribute and ability to do that.”
