Local students AIM HI with career aspirations
Geisinger offers workshops on health care fields
More than 90 students in 10th and 11th grade from Abington Heights, Crestwood, Dallas, Hanover Area, Lakeland, Lake-Lehman, Northwest Area, Old Forge, Pittston, Riverside, Wilkes-Barre Area and Wilkes-Barre Area Career and Technical Center participated in seven workshops designed to give them detailed insight into careers available at Geisinger.
Classrooms were dedicated to interactive sessions about information security, physical therapy, laboratory, infection control, human resources, radiology and MyCode/genetic research. Each workshop was conducted by Geisinger professionals experienced in these fields.
Crestwood junior Trey Zabroski was drawn to the event by the information security workshop as he hopes to pursue a career in forensics, but he enjoyed a demonstration in the physical therapy workshop when occupational therapist Dominick DelPrete asked him to use the same tool, a sock donner, that patients recovering from hip replacements use to put on their socks.
“My great-grandmother had a hip replacement,” Zabroski said. “I saw the tools, but I never knew they were part of the procedure for recovery. I just thought they were meant to help older adults.”
Meyers sophomore Katrina Concepcion and Dallas junior Emma Thomas took interest in a mock urine-testing demonstration proctored by medical technologist and laboratory supervisor Jennifer Swire in the laboratory workshop.
“I learned more about what a medical technologist does in the field,” said Concepcion, who noted that several members of her family, including her mother, are nurses or nurse practitioners. “I want to do something in the medical field, but I’m not sure what yet.”
Thomas, who said she learned more about urine samples and blood samples than she had known previously, has a more specific goal in sight.
“I want to study biomedical engineering and make prosthetics,” she said. “I’d like to help kids in need and work with children who have cancer that has taken limbs.”
While some aspirations were in place before the AIM HI event, others may have arisen from the discussions that took place.
“That’s the value of this program,” said Arion Moser, manager of youth volunteer programs at Geisinger. “These students get a real look at what it’s like to be a health care professional from the people who live it every day. They get the kind of insight that can motivate a young mind to embark on a meaningful career path.”
About Geisinger
Geisinger is among the nation’s leading providers of value-based care, serving 1.2 million people in urban and rural communities across Pennsylvania. Founded in 1915 by philanthropist Abigail Geisinger, the non-profit system generates $10 billion in annual revenues across 134 care sites - including 10 hospital campuses, and Geisinger Health Plan, with 600,000 members in commercial and government plans. The Geisinger College of Health Sciences educates more than 5,000 medical professionals annually and conducts more than 1,400 clinical research studies. With 26,000 employees, including 1,600 employed physicians, Geisinger is among Pennsylvania’s largest employers with an estimated economic impact of $14 billion to the state’s economy. On March 31, 2024, Geisinger became the first member of Risant Health, a new nonprofit charitable organization created to expand and accelerate value-based care across the country. Learn more at geisinger.org or connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.
