The UNMC Department of Pediatrics and the Child Health Research Institute invited area youth to their second annual Community Partner Career Day on July 9.
Participants from Completely KIDS, Girls Inc. and the NorthStar Foundation attended a half day of programming on UNMC’s campus. The department and CHRI work closely with the organizations as primary community partners, not only to address health concerns of Nebraska families, but also to encourage students in the community to consider careers in heath care. Nearly 50 attendees rotated through three educational modules, then attended a lunch and learn event.
“Our career day, and nearly all our other programming done through our community engagement group, is designed to expand the world of kids we connect with and to slowly establish that there is a place for them in the world of health care,” said community engagement committee leader Sharon Stoolman, MD, chief, division of hospital medicine, who welcomed attendees at the start of the event.
The Davis Global Center held two of the training sessions. Kathy Schall, MD, assistant professor, UNMC Department of Surgery, Division of Pediatric Surgery, introduced the attendees to surgical simulation and let them experiment with laparoscopic training equipment.
Moriah McCune, community engagement coordinator at iEXCEL, gave an interactive tour of simulation and visualization areas, including a holographic exploration of a blood vessel.
The third training component took place at the Cellular/Integrative Physiology Lab of Bryan Hackfort, PhD, assistant professor, UNMC Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology. Dr. Hackfort’s lab team introduced participants to physiology research practices.
“One of the aims of the pediatric community engagement committee is to introduce area youth to a variety of health care sciences in hopes of sparking an interest in health care education and careers,” said Amy Rezac-Elgohary, outreach and education programs manager and one of the event organizers. “We hope the students leave here today thinking, ‘I can see myself doing this.'”
“We participate in this event because it provides the right mix of offering interesting things to do and see for our members while showing them that a career in medicine is more than being a doctor or nurse,” said Elliott Beier, high school academic adviser, NorthStar Foundation.