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ABERDEEN, SD (Dakota News Now) – Base American Hospital AssociationAccording to EMSI data, there will be a national shortage of 3.2 million health professionals by 2026.
Sanford in Aberdeen is taking the initiative to address the health care workforce shortage by bringing local high school students to their facility. The fifteen high school juniors and seniors in the MedX program get hands-on experience of what a career in health care can be like.
Over the course of six weeks, the students explore fields such as nursing, orthopedics, radiology, trauma care and more.
“It gives high school students a behind-the-scenes look at a variety of health care operations, giving them the opportunity to have hands-on experience in a variety of settings,” said Bea Smith, Sanford Aberdeen’s community liaison.
Giving the students a glimpse of what the health care field is like, Smith said, could convince them to fill the shortage of health care workers in the future.
“If we can inspire students to look into the health care fields, we hope that we can start to establish that skill line and then help them through their education, which will lead to different job opportunities, internships, hopefully, a job one day. Our hope is that they will decide to go into the health care field. This program will be used by others.” “The Sanford locations work, and you can actually track that 70% of the students who complete the MedX experience go into healthcare-related fields. So, we’re hoping to have similar statistics here in the Aberdeen area,” Smith said.
Aberdeen Central junior Hannah Graebner says she was considering going into pharmacy, but even after a few classes in the MedX program, she learned more about other possible paths.
“We saw all the different things the nurses did, and I didn’t know they did most of them. That surprised me that they do more than just check your temperature. I never thought of being a nurse, but it sounds like fun to do. So maybe that will be an option in the future,” Graebner said.
Graebner said the program changed her perspective on her options, better preparing her for graduation.
“I didn’t really know all the careers out there, so this opened my eyes and now I can see that there are more options than just being a nurse or a doctor,” Graebner said.
This is the first MedX program to be offered in Aberdeen, but Sanford staff said they plan to offer programs each coming fall and spring and open the opportunity to additional schools in the Aberdeen area.
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