Grove City Christian School senior creates club to learn and share about healthcare

From thriving as a dancer throughout her childhood to participating in a highly selective medical program at The Ohio State University, Lucia Guardia-Perez is no stranger to going after her goals. So, when the Grove City Christian Schools senior noticed a gap in school-wide knowledge in how to build a career in healthcare, she worked to educate not only herself, but also her peers by founding a health careers club.

Lucia Guardia-Perez

Learning what’s important

Going into her freshman year of high school, Guardia-Perez developed the chronic autoimmune disorder lupus. Of the disorder’s many symptoms, including fatigue and joint pain, one of the most challenging Guardia-Perez faced when initially diagnosed was her lowered self-esteem due to severe hair loss.

“At that point in my life, I was hyper-focused on what everyone thought of me. I was like, ‘I have to look a certain way, I have to act a certain way,’” Guardia-Perez says. “That (time) taught me a lot of empathy for other people that are going through other things.”

With the experience, along with watching her parents work in healthcare, Guardia-Perez decided she wanted to pursue a career in the medical field.

Founding her future

Lucia Guardia-Perez

Even though Guardia-Perez had a passion for healthcare, she wasn’t sure how to work towards a career in it.

She thought a good way to learn would be to attend MD Camp at OSU. Though she was not initially accepted, she was determined to find another way to learn about healthcare. The idea of founding a club to help educate herself and other students about healthcare fields and building careers in them started to surface.

Lucia Guardia-Perez

During her junior year, Guardia-Perez and her younger brother, Pablo, founded the school’s Health Career Club. The club members bring in field experts, from ER to gastrointestinal nurses and more, to ask questions about their career trajectories and learn more about their lines of work.

Club members also volunteer in the community and host events, including American Red Cross blood drives. One such event was a week-long dental drive for the kindergarten through fourth grade students at GCCS.

“We were able to teach them about dental hygiene, and we were able to have a dental practice sponsor us and bring dental hygienists to help us out with the stations and bring little goodie bags for the kids. That was really fun,” Guardia-Perez says.

Never giving up

Lucia Guardia-Perez

When she wasn’t creating her club, Guardia-Perez was volunteering at Adena Medical Center and shadowing physicians to watch the behind-the-scenes.

“(The experience) honestly just made me more curious,” Guardia-Perez says.

This past summer, she reapplied for OSU’s MD Camp and was thrilled when she was. There, she spent three weeks participating in robotic surgery simulations, learning how to suture and going to the cadaver labs under the mentorship of the professionals and medical students in charge of the program.

Along with the numerous educational opportunities, Guardia-Perez was excited to make meaningful connections with her peers and mentors.

“I made (connections) with other students who are just as passionate about (healthcare) as me, and it was just incredible,” Guardia-Perez says.

A prognosis of next steps

With one year left at Grove City Christian School, Guardia-Perez feels prepared to look ahead.

She hopes to bring in some of her mentors from MD Camp to the club to educate other members, and continue to uplift the structure they’ve created to allow them to host more events and volunteer for their community and greater Columbus.

After participating in the camp herself, Guardia-Perez says OSU is her top choice for her undergraduate studies, where she hopes to continue pursuing healthcare with a major in healthcare science, exercise science or even dance.