Midwestern University Welcomes Over 1,000 High School Students for Annual Health Sciences Career Days

Midwestern University (MWU) hosted its annual Health Sciences Career Day for High School Students in March, offering a free interactive experience for high school students in Arizona and Illinois. The event took place on March 4th on the Glendale Campus, and March 4th and 5th on the Downers Grove Campus. Between the two campuses they welcomed over 1,000 students from more than 40 local high schools.

The event provided interactive, hands-on experiences in more than 25 healthcare fields. Students explored a variety of lab areas including the Gross Anatomy Lab, learned life-saving skills using an Automated External Defibrillator (AED), and gained insight into Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (OMM). They were also introduced to diagnostic imaging techniques through ultrasound, as well as clinical skills such as venipuncture, suturing, and intubation.

The first Health Sciences Career Day was hosted in Arizona in 1999, and the Downers Grove Campus established its event in 2005. The event has had a significant impact on the local community and has inspired many high school students to pursue a career in healthcare.

Science teacher Jason Prey has brought students from Mountain Ridge High School in AZ to this event for the past 20 years. He has watched the Glendale Campus grow exponentially, and thanks to his school’s longstanding involvement with the University’s high school events, he regularly encounters former students who are now enrolled at MWU. “Every year, I run into former students from Mountain Ridge who are current students at Midwestern. My previous students have become doctors, occupational therapists, dentists, and more!” 

Further reiterating the importance of this interactive event, Jason noted, “Health Sciences Career Day has a huge impact. It exposes students to careers they didn't even know existed. The first couple of years I brought students, I didn't know what an occupational therapist was or that someone could have a career as a perfusionist. Midwestern helps teach teachers and students alike about the wide variety of health career opportunities.”

One of Jason’s current students, Olivia Valley, expressed her excitement for the event. "The Health Sciences Careers Day at Midwestern was a fantastic experience! I’ve had the chance to do it twice now, and it has been incredible and vastly different each time. Going into anatomy and physiology at Mountain Ridge High School, I knew I wanted to do something within the medical field, but I had no specific plan of what I wanted to do. Now, thanks to the guidance from Midwestern University’s faculty and students, I feel far more motivated and prepared for the educational and career journey ahead of me."

In Downers Grove, IL, Nicole Gaughan, a science teacher at Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox, led a group of 25 anatomy and physiology students as the school participated in the event for the first time. "We loved it. It was a great hands-on experience for my students to see things first-hand and go through the stations. All of the presenters were amazing. I think the students are walking away with a lot of new knowledge," she said. 

She also highlighted the event’s impact on her teaching: "We’ve been learning about the heart, so actually being able to hold one really brought it together for my students. We’re covering the respiratory system now, so seeing the lungs and learning about them was valuable. Some students even discovered new areas of healthcare, like occupational therapy, that they hadn’t considered before. It really opened their eyes to different career options." 

Ruby Brown, a junior at Maine South High School in Park Ridge, is a prime example. “I really enjoyed the anatomy lab. It was a great experience. I'm interested in physical therapy, and I got to talk to a physical therapy student who was working in the lab. It was helpful to learn more about the types of classes and different areas of physical therapy.” 

Pivotal to the success of Health Sciences Careers Day, MWU students help run labs, connect with high school students, and offer an inside look into what health professional school is really like.

Eric Naglak (CPDG ’27), a first-year pharmacy student, attended the Health Sciences Career Day as a high school student from Lyons Township in 2020. The event helped him decide to pursue pharmacy at Midwestern. Now volunteering at the event, Eric shared, "I saw that the high school career day was today, and since I had such a great experience when I was here as a student, I signed up to lead a group. This event really helped set me on my path. Everything just grew from there."

Serene Puri (AZCOM ’27), a second-year osteopathic medical student, expressed her passion for helping high school students ignite their love for healthcare. “I got to operate the SAM (Student Auscultation Mannikin) to teach high schoolers how to listen to normal and abnormal heart and lung sounds. Getting to expose some of these healthcare-excited students to using a stethoscope, a universal symbol of healthcare, and watching their eyes light up when they heard their first-ever breath sounds was incredibly rewarding. As medical students, we sometimes take for granted how lucky we are to have our own stethoscopes and to listen to patients as part of our jobs. I remember being an excited high school student myself, and I always promised to be the type of mentor that I would have wanted when I was their age.”

For more information on future high school career exploration events, visit https://www.midwestern.edu/events