A roadshow showcasing health careers visited Sir Alexander Mackenzie Secondary School on Monday, May 15.
With a mission to educate local students about the wide range of health career opportunities, 11 health care students and three staff members interacted with SAMS students, sharing information about dental hygiene, medical laboratory science, medicine, nursing, occupational therapy and pharmacy.
Second year medical student Joel O’Brien said he and the other students were blown away by the scenery in the Bella Coola area.
He said they took in Clayton Falls, and did a tour of petroglyphs with Nuxalk Nation members, enjoyed some cultural singing and drumming and a smudge.
The idea of Dr. Sean Maurice with the UBC Northern Medical Program at UNBC, the roadshow started in 2010.
“We try to go every year doing two in May, doing three to five different communities. We usually take about five years to get back to a certain community, but we had a two-year pandemic that threw us off,” he said.
The roadshow is delivered in partnership with the Northern Medical Programs Trust, Rural Education Action Plan, Interior Health, UNBC, and UBC Faculty of Medicine.
After Bella Coola the roadshow went to 100 Mile House, Williams Lake and Quesnel.
Maurice said the university knows it is important to get out into the communities to promote healthcare professions with rural youth.
“If students from rural areas go to university of college and train for health care they are more likely to return to their communities to work or another smaller community which is so important for rural health,” he said.
Following its visit at a community, the roadshow’s organizers receive feedback, specifically that high school students are talking about health careers six months or a year later.
Many northern communities contribute to the Northern Medical Program Trust and at the annual meeting mayors, councillors and other local leaders come together to chat with the dean of the medical school.
“They will talk about what is working, what isn’t working, what they like and every year they say they want more of the roadshow. My dean tells me that we should keep doing it and an indication that people like it,” Maurice said.
Being part of the roadshow is helpful for the healthcare students involved as well because they get to learn from each other and be exposed to different disciplines. It is important for rural health for students to train together and build relationships so they know something about the other careers, he said.
Students apply and all expenses are paid during the roadshows.
“In addition to the time they spend in the schools we also do tours of health centres and we do something fun in communities because we want them to be able to imagine what life would be like living in a community like that,” Maurice said.
Having students in the medical program from a variety of communities and backgrounds also adds to the diversity of each cohort, Maurice said.
Originally from Vancouver, he moved to Prince George with his family and has been on the faculty for 16 years. He studied in Calgary and Vancouver. He teaches histopathology, which refers to the microscopic examination of tissue in order to study the manifestation of disease.
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monica.lamb-yorski@wltribune.com
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