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High-schoolers get to check out medical careers at SLCH fair

High school students spent their school day attending Samaritan’s Health Care Exploration Fair at Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital Nov. 30.

The fair included stations for nursing, sports medicine, imaging, laboratory, physicians, and more that gave students a glimpse into what is involved in each field.

Exposing students to different health care career opportunities is important, said Megan Konzelman, coordinator of student services at Samaritan.

“Research has shown that students being exposed to career pathways earlier in life actually helps direct them on a more clear trajectory for their career path in the future,” she said.

Hailey Clevenger, a junior at Lebanon High School, said she used to want to be a teacher but eventually decided that wouldn’t be a good fit for her.

The nursing station at the health fair “looked pretty cool,” she said, but she noticed that many of the stations had some sort of connection to veterinary medicine, which she’s currently leaning toward. 

Konzelman said she reaches out to students as young as middle school age in order to plant those seeds that will help them make decisions later on in life.

“Introducing them to these new ideas early on can help them make some of those bigger decisions that they’re being asked to make their senior year,” she said. 

Hanna Davis, a senior at LHS, has been thinking a lot about her career path lately. She’s considered nursing, x-ray tech and dental options, but a DO at the health fair gave her something a little different to mull over.

“(She said to make) sure you love what you do before you get into it, and experience stuff and job shadow before you start going to school,” Davis said.

Katelin Case, a junior at LHS, has also been considering nursing or obstetrics and gynecology, and the fair gave her an opportunity to realize there’s more to health than meets the eye.

“I learned there’s many more careers in the health field than we get to see,” Case said.