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By TYLER ELLYSON
UNK Communications
KEARNEY – Greater than 300 college students from 54 totally different excessive colleges gathered Wednesday on the College of Nebraska at Kearney, they usually all have one factor in widespread.
They’re inquisitive about well being care careers.
Joined by a further 150 present UNK college students, these future medical doctors, dentists, nurses, bodily therapists and pharmacists got here collectively for the annual Well being Careers Honest on campus.
Organized by UNK Health Sciences, the occasion provides attendees a possibility to fulfill with employers and representatives from numerous skilled colleges whereas studying about UNK and its tutorial applications. It’s a part of the Well being Science Explorers program, a UNK initiative that addresses the continued want for well being care employees by introducing extra center and highschool college students to those careers and academic paths.
“There’s such a scarcity of well being care professionals proper now, and highschool is the age when college students are actually attempting to determine the place they wish to go to highschool and what their main goes to be. We wish to present all of them the totally different prospects and hopefully information extra folks to these well being care professions,” mentioned Sara Bruner, coordinator of the Health Science Explorers program.
Representatives from UNK and different postsecondary colleges throughout the state and area had been readily available to share details about coaching applications and a number of other space well being care suppliers had been obtainable to reply questions and talk about employment alternatives. College students additionally participated in breakout classes specializing in job shadowing, nursing, medical laboratory science and radiography.
Allisen Jelinek, a senior at Aquinas Catholic Excessive Faculty in David Metropolis, already plans to pursue a profession in pharmacy, so she was centered on studying extra concerning the subsequent step in her schooling.
Jelinek desires to attend UNK, following within the footsteps of her mom Amy, who works as a pharmacist at Butler County Well being Care Middle, and he or she’s within the Kearney Health Opportunities Program (KHOP). A collaboration between UNK and the College of Nebraska Medical Middle, KHOP is out there to college students from rural Nebraska who’re dedicated to training in these areas as medical professionals. Members obtain a full-tuition scholarship to attend UNK and assured admission to UNMC if all necessities are met. The KHOP Studying Group gives further assist, mentoring {and professional} growth alternatives for first-year UNK college students, together with a $2,000 room waiver.
Again in David Metropolis, Jelinek is making ready for her profession by job shadowing at a neighborhood pharmacy.
“That have is absolutely invaluable as a result of it form of solidifies whether or not or not you wish to go into a selected space,” she mentioned.
At Gothenburg Excessive Faculty, steerage counselor Jerry Wiggins is seeing increasingly college students inquisitive about well being care.
“And there’s an enormous want all through the nation,” he famous.
Wiggins introduced eight seniors to the UNK Well being Careers Honest, an occasion he’s been attending since its inception. He desires to reveal college students to a broad vary of choices in increased schooling and get them fascinated about faculty.
“For a few of our college students, it’s the primary time they’ve really stepped on a school campus,” Wiggins mentioned. “That chance simply to stroll round a school campus serves a goal for them.”
For employers like CHI Well being, the profession truthful is the proper place to attach with their future expertise pool and promote their positions.
“This occasion permits us to make these connections and present college students there are many totally different job alternatives obtainable in well being care,” mentioned Jill England, who recruits for CHI Well being Good Samaritan in Kearney and CHI Well being St. Francis in Grand Island.
Along with excessive wages and job stability, the well being care business provides one other perk many careers can’t. It permits workers to really impression others and assist enhance their lives.
“If that’s one thing that basically drives you, then well being care is certainly the place for you,” England mentioned.
PHOTOS BY ERIKA PRITCHARD, UNK COMMUNICATIONS
