While many students that opt to participate in the Creighton University Pipeline to Success Health Careers Opportunity Program (HCOP) often have an idea of what health professional career they wish to pursue, many do not and those that do realize that they are open to learning more about other health professional careers outside of the one they desire to become in the future. For those that are still trying to figure it out, a portion of our HCOP programmatic activities involve career exploration which aims to empower students to discover, plan and pursue their health professional goals.
As we continue to deliver programmatic activities in a virtual space, we carve out time during each HCOP session to focus primarily on what we call – "virtual job shadowing". HCOP Session 4 is no exception where students were exposed to the following health professional careers: a hospital admissions representative, a certified medical assistant (CMA), and an intensive care (surgery) physician.
Thirty-one (31) high school and ten (10) health professional 2020-2021 Health Careers Ambassador Program student participants got the opportunity to participate in an interactive video-based career planning platform where each invited health professional got to share his/her daily routine/tasks, demographic of patients, education needed to pursue the profession, etc.
Here’s a glimpse into a few of the questions addressed by each of the health professionals featured during this session:
What type of information do you collect from patients?
Do you need to understand medical terminology?
What classes are the most important for a career in medicine?
How do you deal with difficult patients?
Who can guess what health professionals we plan to feature during the next HCOP session?