Seventy-four high schoolers enrolled in the Health Department’s Public Health Youth Ambassadors Program (PHYAP) spent a day at the Inova Fairfax medical campus last week. Students interacted with healthcare professionals, and explored the vast world of career opportunities in the fields of medicine and healthcare. The students attend Justice and Mount Vernon high schools and were provided the opportunity as part of Inova Fairfax Hospital’s “Dream B!G” program.

By offering opportunities for youth and adults to explore healthcare career paths, Dream B!G hopes to inspire young people to pursue healthcare careers. Dream B!g is aligned with the PHYAP program goals of increasing student awareness of the broad range of opportunities within the field of public health, as well as broadening students’ knowledge around the multiple ways our world is influenced and connected by healthcare-related activities.

“The partnership between the Dream Big and PHYAP programs illustrates a shared belief that when students can engage with professionals in the field, we increase the chances that they’ll pursue these types of careers,” said Scott Folks, Program director for the Public Health Youth Ambassador Program. “In discovering the ways medicine aligns with technology, research, engineering, and community service outreach, students develop a more complete sense of the range of opportunities that are available to them.” 

Dr. Tiffany Latham, DNP, ANP-BC, Chair of Inova APP Professional Development at Inova Schar Heart and Vascular Institute, welcomed the students to the INOVA campus and laid out the plans and goals for the day. Inova Fairfax’s Chief Nursing Officer Dr. Dina Dent spoke of the personal rewards and sense of gratification gained from a career in healthcare, while Nathan Mart from the Workforce Development team showed the students opportunities for a healthcare-related jobs that go beyond physician and nursing.

Dream B!G activities are designed for students to explore a future in healthcare, learning about multiple career paths while engaging with Inova healthcare team members and University of Virginia (UVA) medical students. The students were divided into groups and explored diverse career paths through four different rotations. Activities included:

• Touring the Advanced Surgical Technology and Education Center (ASTEC), the most technologically advanced surgery simulation facility in the region providing unsurpassed real-time surgical training
• Hands-on learning physical exam skills, including learning to hear heart and lung sounds, with UVA medical students
• Understanding the importance of injury and trauma prevention, by participating in simulations, including one covering impaired and distracted driving
• Learning about the field of Neurology, including brain functions, effects of trauma to the brain and spinal cord injuries

The event concluded with conversations with medical professionals, who provided advice and guidance, and lessons-learned as they shared their own career and life experiences. Closing remarks were provided by Dr. Steve Narang, President of the Inova Fairfax Medical Campus and President of Pediatric Services.