CWU Health Sciences hosts regional workforce development for high schoolers

One of the biggest challenges faced by healthcare providers in rural communities like Kittitas County is a lack of local medical professionals to round out their staff and provide the care patients need across multiple disciplines.

Several organizations dedicated to addressing this issue, including Central Washington University’s Department of Health Sciences, came together last month in a collaborative effort to introduce area high school students to the broad variety of careers available in healthcare.

The inaugural Scrubs Camp was held April 24 at CWU, welcoming 75 high school students introduced to career paths such as paramedicine, medical assistant, nursing, behavior health, physical and occupational therapy, and nutrition by professionals in each of those fields, with the goal of setting them on the path to fruitful health sciences careers.

The event was the result of a partnership between CWU, Greater Health Now (GHN), the Central Washington Area Health Education Center (AHEC) at Wenatchee Valley College, Community Health of Central Washington, Kittitas County Fire Protection District 6, Educational Service District 105, Kittitas County Public Health, and Kittitas Valley Health (KVH).

CWU Health Sciences Department Chair Jared Dickinson has been involved with the planning process since last October, and he was overjoyed to see all of the pieces come together.

“This gives us a chance to show students the pathways that exist to a career in health sciences right here at Central,” he said. “In addition, we’re getting to show them the many unique spaces and really cool equipment that students learn to operate, which is the same exact equipment they’ll use out in their health and healthcare careers. It’s exciting for us to bring 75 high school age kids here and allow them to consider what path they want to pursue.”

Greater Health Now, a nonprofit working to advance community health in southeastern Washington, identified a valuable partner in CWU almost immediately after realizing an event like this would be good for the area, according to Director of Workforce Development Dani LaForest.

“Once we identified a need for this kind of event in Kittitas County, we started reaching out to local partners, and Jared came on board the calls as a representative of CWU,” she said. “We pretty quickly identified the Health Sciences building as the perfect setting for this event so that students could see some real lab spaces and really get a feel for the healthcare setting.”

Students were introduced to the school and the subject matters at hand in an opening session co-hosted by CWU and GHN. Afterwards, they broke out into groups rotating through presentations on a variety of topics hosted by experts in the field, including hands-on lessons using realistic props.

CWAHEC Director Nancy Spurgeon explained that this in-depth approach helps students see a future for themselves in a field that might be broader than they initially thought.

“What I’ve learned is that, across the board, kids don’t realize that a career in medicine isn’t limited to being a doctor or a nurse,” she said. “Events like this give them the opportunity to see all of the things that are connected to healthcare, including behavioral health and EMT work.”

According to Dickinson, this approach meshes well with CWU’s approach to health sciences education.

“One of the great things about health sciences is that we have five undergraduate majors, and through those five majors, you get access to a wide variety of different career pathways,” he said. “Those all rely on our partners in the field to take our students in for internships and hands-on experiences, and work like this solidifies those partnerships.”

Scrubs Camp has been hosted at other institutions across central Washington before, and often sees growth in its second year at a given location. With such a strong start for the event at CWU, Dickinson looks forward to seeing it flourish in future years.

“The facility here is great for hosting these kinds of events, and our faculty is so willing to engage with the students, too,” he said. “We’d love to continue hosting Scrubs Camp as it grows and evolves year over year.”