Offering real-world instruction to train for skilled jobs in the health care industry, the OhioHealth program at the Pickerington Local School District allows students to select from a range of medical careers as they continue exploring their fields of interest and college options.
The program, which first started in 2012 with 76 students, now has more than 400 students at the high school level.
Starting with grades seven and eight, it offers beginner medical detective classes to about 800 students each year. In high school, participating students take courses on subjects such as biomedical sciences and body systems. Seniors take a project-based course at OhioHealth.
There are eight junior high and high school teachers who help teach the program.
“Health care is a growing industry and there is a lot of demand for people working in health care. Especially in central Ohio, there is a great labor market demand,” says Julie Novel, high school curriculum coordinator of the OhioHealth program at PLSD. “There’s now a huge variety of jobs available in health care. You have everything from therapeutic careers such as respiratory therapy, diagnostic careers and even radiologic technicians.”
Andy Harris, a teacher at the OhioHealth center, says the main goal is to fill the growing need for health care workers in the industry. Having a background in exercise science and physiology, his job is to oversee these students’ transition from high school to college and help them find jobs post-graduation.
OhioHealth invested $2 million into the program, which provides staff hours for students as well as an average of more than 500 shadowing hours per year along with rotations between the pharmacy and the emergency room.
“We participate in biomedical science competitions across the country. If any of our students place in the top 10 of the country, they are eligible to apply for scholarships when pursuing higher education,” Harris says. “We are also involved in the Global Summit, where students from all over the world work on global issues, so if we start working with these kids from different countries, they can all work together on some of these projects.”
Since health care providers are having a hard time hiring workers, the biggest benefit to the Pickerington community is high school students who can get ahead in becoming qualified medical practitioners. This year, the program has almost 80 high school seniors working at the hospital.
Novel says that most of these 80 students will go on to college and a large portion of them will end up working in the health care field. That will be a tremendous benefit to the community and for the future of medical sciences at large.
According to Novel, the baby boomer generation is large and will require many more services from health care providers in the near future, whether it is physical rehabilitation for an injury or for general advice on exercise, nutrition and dietary restrictions.
“We haven’t seen this yet, but I think we’re going to start seeing it in the next five years or so where the baby boomer generation is going to create a lot of demand for health care services and there’s going to be a lot of stress on the system,” Novel says.
Sanaya Attari is an editorial assistant. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
