It's High School...in the Hospital

Through a new LVHHN youth education program, high school students like Natalie Shisslak learn about health care firsthand

Natalie Shisslak is wide-eyed and listening as Mary Jo Moekirk, R.N., gives a patient an electrocardiogram in the emergency department. This is where she wants to be. After all, she wants to be a nurse practitioner someday.

Normally, Shisslak, 18, a senior honor student at Northwestern Lehigh High School, wouldn't get to experience health care this close. But a new hospital program called Emerging Health Professions allows her to learn what it's like to work in the hospital.

A partnership with Penn State University and the Lehigh Career and Technical Institute (LCTI), the program gives high-performing high school students the chance to shadow clinicians and earn eight college credits. "To ensure the program attracts the brightest students, we require participants to have at least a 3.0 grade-point average (GPA) and completed classes in chemistry, biology and Algebra II," says Maggie Hadinger, who coordinates the program in the Center for Educational Development and Support.

Students from nine school districts and 11 schools vied for the program's 16 spots. "I didn't even know if I'd make it," says Shisslak, who maintains a 4.0 GPA, "but I knew I wanted to be like my mom, Deanna (a parent education coordinator at LVHHN), and work in health care."

The program encourages students to explore any health care career, and it is challenging. Consider that Shisslak participates in science classes at Penn State Lehigh Valley two mornings each week, then spends the other three mornings inside the hospital. There, she receives instruction from an LCTI teacher and shadows caregivers at all three sites, visiting areas such as the ED, mother/baby unit, orthopedics and the dental clinic. She also completes a full high school class schedule.

The reward for all that hard work: "This is giving me an advantage heading to college, because now I know what to expect," Shisslak says. "I feel like this is my freshman year in college."

The program also benefits our hospital by helping nurture students' interests in health care at a young age and exposing them to potential future scholarship and internship opportunities. This outreach is vital to the hospital's effort to recruit not only more clinicians, but the best clinicians to care for our patients. Our workforce is expected to reach 10,000 employees in the next three years, and new hires are expected to number 1,600 annually over that same time.

For Natalie Shisslak, the best part of her unique schooling is her time spent shadowing and watching nurses interact with patients. "I'm learning more about the hospital. I've been shown how to take blood pressure and give electrocardiograms," she says. "This program isn't easy, but it's shown me I really want to be a nurse."

This page last updated 2/12/08 04:08 PM