On Monday, Nov. 10, HOSA, or Health Occupation Students of America, hosted their annual medical panel for those interested in pursuing a medical career after high school. Students and parents were given the opportunity to hear from and ask questions to a variety of different medical professionals. This year’s panel featured 11 healthcare professionals, ranging from a pediatrician to a NICU nurse to a neurosurgeon.
HOSA has been putting on this medical panel nearly every year since the 2014-15 school year, though it usually takes place during second semester. Each year, the club focuses on reaching out to people in a variety of medical careers, and this year saw a wide range of speakers.
“This year, we were kind of really intentional about trying to get a very wide variety of careers, which I think paid off,” said Kathryn Mogni, HOSA adviser. “I think it was cool to see the camaraderie between them, and they have all these different specialty areas, but they all could kind of relate back to whatever the professional was saying.”
In order to find medical professionals willing to participate, the HOSA leadership team, club members and even other teachers spread the word and reached out to specific people.
“We gave every club member a letter that they could pass along to people that they know. We were lucky enough this year to put it in the CCR newsletter that went home to parents and the Polaris Express, which also goes home to families,” said Mogni. “A lot of our leadership team has some sort of connection to a couple of these panelists that they directly reached out to.”
Many of the speakers recognized the significant impact working in a medical profession can have on the people they support.
“[There are] a lot easier ways to make money than getting in health care, but … there are not many things in the world that you can do that can make a bigger difference,” said Pediatric Dentist Dr. Matt Karsten during the panel discussion. “When you sacrifice and give your own life and your time to make a difference, to make somebody more important than yourself, it is an insanely powerful thing.”
The medical professionals also emphasized that the journey to their current healthcare position was not straightforward.
“There is a career ladder, but most of the time there’s a career lattice, right? You’re not really going to always go straight up and into what you want to do. Sometimes, your passion may call this year to this, but your passion can also pivot to this,” said Nurse Shanee Cox during the panel discussion. “At the end of the day, you will and can be successful regardless of when your passions change.”
By either encouraging students to dive deeper into the world of healthcare, focusing their interest or steering them in a completely different direction, the HOSA medical panel allows students to learn more about the medical field and make more informed decisions on their career goals.
“I think it’s a cool way to … confirm interests that maybe kids have [or] that they want to continue to pursue, or sort of steer them in other directions, which is not necessarily a bad thing. [That could] be another direction within the medical field [or] a completely different direction within their career,” said Mogni. “[We want to] give them as much knowledge to start to maybe think about those things and make those decisions.”
