Health Professions Career Day draws teens to UNMC

Wayne Houston

Nearly 300 youths took part in the fourth annual Health Professions Career Day at UNMC on June 18 & 25. The youths, ages 14-15, explored the variety of health professions including nursing, physical therapy, physician assistant and medical imaging.

The career day is sponsored by the UNMC Center for Reducing Health Disparities in the College of Public Health. Student participants come from a summer program called Step Up, sponsored by the Empowerment Network.

“Through this career day we hope to pique the interest of these youths by exposing them to a variety of health careers, so they can prepare themselves academically for their chosen field,” said Wayne Houston, community health program manager with the COPH Center for Reducing Health Disparities. “We also hope that by providing experiences such as this it will increase the number of diverse health care professionals.”