By JOYANNA LOVE/ Senior Staff Writer

Madalyn (Maddy) Barrington, who was awarded the 2018 Shelby Baptist Future Leaders Scholarship during the Peach Pageant, had the opportunity to tour Shelby Baptist Medical Center on Aug. 3.

“It was an amazing experience,” Barrington said. “It taught me a lot.”

She was at the hospital from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“It made me for sure know that being in a hospital, being a doctor, is definitely what I want to do,” Barrington said. “… I have always felt like helping other people is my main purpose in life.”

While she has not picked a definite area of medicine, she did enjoy the area that helped babies.

“The biggest thing that happened was I got to go in and actually watch them do a C-section,” Barrington said. “That was something I had never experience before, and it was really amazing.”

The Future Shelby Baptist Leaders Scholarship recipient is decided through an essay contest open to Peach Pageant participants. Barrington focused her essay on the prevalence of mental health issues, need for proper treatment and empathy from others in society.

Barrington said she “was surprised” when her name was announced as the winner.

In her bio for the pageant, Barrington had mentioned her interested in a medical career.

After she won the scholarship, Barrington was asked if she would be interest in the Shelby Baptist Medical Center job-shadowing program.

“I said, ‘I would love to’ … I told her I was interested in something to do with babies. I wasn’t really sure what,” Barrington said.

Barrington visited the women’s department, the NICU and the emergency department during her job-shadowing experience.

She described the women’s department as being “warm and welcoming” for the patients.

In the NICU, Barrington enjoyed seeing the nurses interacting with the babies and their mothers.

In the emergency department, she witnessed the medical teams at work with various patients, including some psychiatric patients.

“It was very interesting, because that is what I wrote my essay on,” Barrington said. “I got to see what the patients are like and what they go through every day, so it was very neat to be able to understand it all.”

Barrington is a junior at Chilton County High School. This year, she will be taking anatomy and biology, along with some dual-enrollment classes, to help her prepare for college and her future career.