Medical Students Prescribe a Range of Healthcare Career Options

With 138 specialties for physicians, medical students could have simply centered on those numerous options in a presentation for Sweet Home High School students. Yet, having mentored their younger peers throughout this school year, they understood the importance of providing information that encompassed a far broader approach.

First-year medical students at Western University of Health Sciences, COMP-NW, Michelle Riedel and Jordyn Lacey (in 2021-2022), pulled together data and descriptions for healthcare career options of most interest to the SHHS students. Using MIKE survey data and conducting a survey of their own, the WUHS mentors wanted to develop lessons and presentations that addressed career goals and topics of most interest to the SHHS students. So, they focused on wide range of career options to include what it takes to become dental assistants, chiropractors, physical therapists, other clinical specialties, as well as some physician specialties in pediatrics, surgery and family medicine.

Fourteen medical students at WUHS volunteered to mentor SHHS students within their Anatomy & Physiology classes. Seven medical students returned for a second year to gain more experience connecting with youth and to help guide seven first-year colleagues. Madeleine Duncan, continued as lead mentor for her second year, bringing on Sydney Jennings to co-lead and prepare her for taking over mentoring duties for the 2022-203 academic year.

During each session, two WUHS students teamed up to focus their presentation on health topics chosen by the SHHS students. This year, students wanted to learn about the effects of mental health on health and how to ways to relieve stress, body image and identity, how the human brain works, the respiratory system, understanding the five senses, food that helps strengthen functions of the brain, physical fitness and how injuries impact the body, addictions and the latest on COVID-19, vaccines and the future of the virus.

Even with their daunting training schedules, all the WUHS medical students relished their time preparing and presenting health information to the SHHS students. It provides a valuable learning opportunity for medical students to experience what it’s like to connect and convey health information to teenagers in a rural community.