Summer Can Be a Time for Students to Learn About Careers in Healthcare

By Andrew Wilson

One of the most daunting questions a teen can face is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Most times, the answer is shaped by the experiences that teen has had. At a minimum, a child of a healthcare professional may have a better understanding of what it takes to have a career in healthcare than a child of a parent from a non-healthcare occupation.

But there are other pathways to a career in healthcare than just being born into a family of caregivers. There are numerous summer workshop or camp opportunities to learn from healthcare professionals in the field for students in western Pennsylvania who think they might be interested in a career in healthcare.

“Our passion is finding students who don’t know how to get into a health career,” said Lynne Williams, MD, PhD, executive director of the Southwest Pennsylvania AHEC - which stands for Area Health Education Center.

Karen Narkevic, MA, director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Health Career Scholars Academy agrees with that sentiment.

“We want to encourage young people to go into healthcare,” she said. “The goal of our program is to expose them to a wide variety of career opportunities. Healthcare is not just doctors and nursing.”

Indeed. Even teens who respond “doctor” or “nurse” to that daunting question of what they want to be may be surprised to learn how many career paths are available under those two broad categories, as well as the career fulfillment that might await them in fields such as occupational therapy, physical therapy, physician assistant, or pharmacy, to name just a few.

Carlow University’s Prepare to Care workshop is a two-day program that features opportunities to learn from faculty and staff.

“The format of the entire workshop is focused on helping students learn about healthcare career fields, and we'll be partnering with Nursing, Perfusion, Intraoperative Neuromonitoring, Respiratory Therapy, and other program faculty,” said Meredith Weber, associate director of Dual Enrollment and School Relations for Carlow. “It's highly interactive as we have set up lab activities with each program, so students experience hands-on learning.”

The interactive or hands-on experience is important to all the programs, too. It is understood that no students want to spend their summer days being lectured about what a career in healthcare is like. If possible, they would like to experience for themselves what a certain career involves.

To that end, Pitt’s Health Career Scholars Academy may have representatives from pharmacy lead a lab where they create their own ChapStick, someone from nursing might show them what to look for when they strike a patient’s knee with the reflex hammer, or they might get the opportunity to put sutures into a pig’s foot, bought from a local market. The AHEC summer program also includes suturing pig’s feet, as well as using a mannequin to demonstrate how to intubate a patient, an ophthalmologist’s slit lamps for examining eyes, and activities at the Pitt Dental School and the WISER simulation center. Carlow’s Prepare to Care also features the opportunity for students to observe an actual open-heart surgery.

The programs vary in cost and duration, but the goal is the same: encourage students to explore the numerous healthcare careers available to them.

Here is a bit more information about the programs mentioned above as well as a few programs found via a quick search on the internet.

Southwest PA AHEC

Southwest Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center (AHEC) holds an annual Summer Health Career Academy. The academy is designed for current ninth and tenth grade students who are interested in learning about opportunities in various health careers and the academic preparation necessary for these careers. Students meet with and talk to practicing health care professionals, engage in health career activities, learn to monitor vital signs, engage in hands on medical procedures, learn basic medical terminology, and receive training in leadership skills.

Applications are accepted from current 9th and 10th grade students who reside in the seven southwestern Pennsylvania counties (Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Fayette, Greene, Washington, and Westmoreland).

For more information or to apply, please visit: https://www.southwestahec.org/hca