Rachel Lam, Features Editor
This year, Mills High School has partnered with Skyline College to provide students with a health career class. Taught by Professor Paul Rueckhaus, the semester-long class is held at Mills weekly on Mondays from 6-9 p.m. and is meant to expose students to different health career paths.
Students attending the class are introduced to different health professions weekly, such as physical therapy assistants, surgical technologists, and dental assistants. Although the careers explore different settings, each class covers a skill that is universal to all healthcare workers. “We’ve covered every topic from medical language and terminology to anatomy…we’ve covered professional subjects such as ethics in healthcare, like privacy, confidentiality, and supporting patients and making changes,” Mr. Rueckhaus says.
Throughout the course, students will learn a number of hard skills. They will receive training in basic life support, which includes a CPR course for healthcare providers. Students will also have vital signs and skills assessments, such as taking blood pressure, identifying signs of illness and disease, and examining the body for signs of different health conditions. “Not everything we learn is a hard skill. It’s a combination of everything,” Mr. Rueckhaus clarifies. “We learn soft skills that aren’t necessarily medical—for example, how to listen attentively and show patients that you’re listening.”
The purpose of the health career class is to provide students an opportunity to learn about different healthcare career paths and clarity about what careers they would like to pursue in the future. As it is a concurrent enrollment class, it is also being held to give students the opportunity to accumulate college credit while they are still in high school and to prepare for college classes. “College is full of lectures, and you’re often challenged to discuss and think critically, to read deeply, and ask plenty of questions,” elaborates Mr. Rueckhaus. “We want to help them prepare for college.”
The health career class provides several benefits—for one, it gives students a chance to explore any current interests in healthcare. Senior Samantha Chan explains, “I am personally taking the class since I want to become a nurse in the future. I think it is a good introductory course to make sure that it is something I am interested in.” The class also allows students who are unsure about what they want to pursue in the future to sample a variety of healthcare professions. “I think it’s great if a student goes through the course and gains more clarity about what they want to do…but I also think it’s wonderful if a student completes the course and realizes that healthcare is not for them,” states Mr. Rueckhaus.
Mills High School and Skyline College have partnered together to expose students to health-related professions, to broaden their perspectives of the healthcare system, and to allow students an opportunity to accumulate college credit while they are still attending high school. However, at the end of the day, they share one important goal: to help students experience self-discovery through the health career course.
