Students interested in healthcare professions will need to gain experience, have opportunities and develop teamwork. The collaboration between Upper Arlington High School (UAHS) and the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center (WexMed) will offer students a chance to further develop these essential qualities.
A new program that started with the partnership of UAHS and WexMed was created to help students find opportunities for potential interest in healthcare. This program stretches out to 41 unique fields, each to bring awareness of what the field offers. A former UAHS student, Liam Hall, stated that this program allowed him a valuable experience and insight on everything that healthcare may offer apart from the typical doctors or nurses.
“I think the most valuable part was after my rotation. I worked in five different labs, and it kind of gave me a sense of different areas of the medical field and kind of what I wanted to do. Because going into it, I knew that I wanted to do something medical, but I was kind of unsure as to what, and so I think it gives me a lot of insight,” Hall said.
The WexMed program is a newly created program that is only in its beginning stages. Elizabeth Lanker, an Associate Director of Workforce Partnership, works to connect different schools to join together in the WexMed program. They are still at the point where they are trying to educate the students and help them find interest in any form of healthcare. They offer different opportunities including shadowing, internships, classroom learning and on site experiences. Then students decide on their own if they intend to pursue these careers.
“My role is a newly created role for the OSU Wexner Medical Center. The purpose of my role is to connect students grades K-12 to possible healthcare careers that they could take a look at for their own future. We do this by creating agreements with various school districts around central Ohio,” Lanker said. “We are committed to working with students at [UAHS] to help inspire and encourage students to consider pathways in healthcare that maybe they hadn’t thought about before.”
They offer two different types of programs for students; classroom learning, and onsite learning. For grades K-12, everyone is allowed to do classroom learning with no restrictions. However, for onsite learning like shadowing, internships and field trips, only high school students are allowed to participate. Even high school students are still required to fill out many legal documents and drug tests in order to pass all regulations to do onsite learning.
Past experiences in any medical or healthcare field is not required to sign up for this program. While Hall was interested in medicine, he had little to no past experience. He stated that even though he felt nervous, he had tons of support from the staff at the WexMed center and from UAHS.
“I was very, very nervous, but, I mean, everyone there was so nice. They were also excited to have someone there from high school. It was a very welcoming environment. So I enjoyed it.” Hall said.
Junior Yasin Sayed Ahmed, introduced to this program by Hall, is an UAHS student who is also interested in the medical field as a neurosurgeon. Even with limited knowledge about what neurosurgeons may do, he is willing to go into this program blind to see if his passion will continue throughout his educational journey. Even with no specific goal to achieve in this program, Sayed Ahmed wants to join this program to solely explore the healthcare field.
“I hope to learn more about the career itself, but I also think the program will be a valuable experience to place on my college application, or hopefully even end up writing about in my college essay.” Sayed Ahmed said.
This new program is a great opportunity for UAHS students. It gives students the chance to explore interest in healthcare without committing too much time or energy to find and gain experience. Whether or not the passion for healthcare arises, developing the ability of communication and teamwork with onsite jobs is a useful tool in any profession.