Community Outreach
Collaboration
UH Manoa
The University of Hawaiʻi Kakaʻako campus bustled with the sounds of children excited to attend the first physician career pathway tour and workshop of its kind for students as young as the sixth grade. Nearly a hundred students from Waipahu’s Honowai Elementary School, accompanied by their teachers, spent their morning learning at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM).
“We know that role modeling is really critical for any young person or child– just having that ability to say ‘wow, okay, that person could be me someday,’” said Associate Dean Lee Buenconsejo-Lum, in an interview with KHON2 News.
JABSOM’s Hawaiʻi/Pacific Basin Area Health Education Center tailored the tour to the teachers’ curriculum so that the health topics would emphasize what they are learning about in their Waipahu classrooms including the microbiome and the harmful effects of smoking, vaping and drug use.
The Honowai students also learned the theory behind taking a blood pressure reading and worked together through a problem-based learning case, or clinical scenario that helps students develop critical thinking, problem-solving and collaboration skills– similar to the PBL curriculum offered to medical students at JABSOM.
The event was the brainchild of Honowai teacher Malia Ignacio and her mentor at JABSOM, Crystal Costa, whom she worked with at JABSOM in the dean’s office while obtaining her Master’s in education from UH Mānoa. They had dinner together and Ignacio expressed that she wanted to expose her students to different career pathways and Costa encouraged her to bring them to the UH medical school.
“I went to public school too and growing up, I never really thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up so I think that us, exposing the kids to healthcare now and saying, ‘hey this is an option for you’ is something to think about,” said Ignacio, a graduate of Moanalua High School.
In fact, she saw sparks light up in her students' eyes when they were presented with fractions during one of the workshops at JABSOM.
“The kids are learning about fractions at school and to hear them say ‘oh my gosh I know the answer, I know how to do this’ and for them to know that this is part of the medical field and making those connections– these students are just amazing. Maybe we’ll get our potential doctors and nurses here one day,” Ignacio said.
Sophia Tolentino, age 12, told KHON2 News, “I might do this because I liked learning about health and medical stuff.”
Associate Dean Dr. Lee Buenconsejo-Lum says that they have many tours and workshops for high school students but it’s the first time that JABSOM had an entire sixth grade class participate in a physician career pathway tour like this at the UH Kakaʻako campus. She emphasizes that the many and various pathway programs to medical school are so important for the future of the state’s workforce.
“We’ve just last year had one of those students whom we met as a middle schooler, who then came here, finished her PhD and then graduated as a physician and is now in a residency program, she was able to stay here,” Buenconsejo-Lum said.
Although she gave an example of just one person, she estimates that ⅓ of JABSOM’s first-year MD class have participated in one of the school’s pathway programs during their adolescent years.
More about AHEC
If you are interested in working in the healthcare industry but are unsure which path is right for you, AHEC is here to help. We offer workshops and hands-on activities to explore and understand what it takes to become a healthcare professional. Join our Pre-Health Career Corps Program and follow us on instagram @hawaiipacificahec for workshop updates and stay connected.
See photos from the Physician Career Pathway Tour with Honowai Elementary School on our JABSOM Flickr page :
Image of a group of students from Honowai Elementary School participating in the Physician Career Pathway Tour, learning about healthcare professions.