Wright College students examine health care careers

by Mark McGowan

Students from Wilbur Wright College in Chicago spent April 14 at NIU exploring careers in health care - and the value of a bachelor's degree when pursuing them.

Invited to campus through the School of Nursing's Rural Adult Nurse Practitioner grant, the students began their day with speakers, videos and hands-on activities in the nursing lab. Their afternoon involved meetings with students, faculty and administrators from across the NIU College of Health and Human Sciences.

"We want to see, very honestly, if we can't encourage you to go into into health care," said Rebecca Cohen, co-project director for the RANP grant. "We'd love to have you in health care. We need to have you. There are jobs. We need you in the underserved areas."

Cohen told the students, some of whom are still in high school but taking courses at Wilbur Wright, that even densely populated Cook County is underserved as well as areas with strong populations of minorities. The demand for health care workers is not exclusive to nursing, she added.

Students also learned about Kids into Health Care, an initiative being developed by the federal Department of Health and Human Services to supplement the pool of qualified applicants from economically and educationally disadvantaged and under-represented minority populations for entry into health professions training.

Most racial and ethnic minorities are under-represented within the health professions, according to Kids into Health Care. For example, just 9 percent of physicians, 4 percent of dentists and 13 percent of registered nurses are African American, Hispanic, American Indian, Alaska Native, Hawaiian Native, or Pacific Islander. The U.S. population, on the other hand, is 25 percent minority and expected to grow to 30 percent by 2010.

Shirley Richmond, dean of the College of Health and Human Sciences, urged the students to embrace education beyond an associate's degree.

"If you want to go to college, there are all kinds of ways you can get to college and be a success. It's just one step at a time," Richmond said. "NIU has a tremendous set of programs that help students. You can do it. It might take you a while, but hey, it's taken us all a while."

The students, many of whom were either Latino or African-American, also heard from Sylvia Fuentes, director of University Resources for Latinos; LaVerne Gyant, director of the Center for Black Studies, and Leroy Mitchell, director of NIU's CHANCE program.

"We work you harder. We push you real, real hard," Mitchell said. "The strong will survive. It's important you come in here with a strong feeling of you who are. Students of color can be successful at Northern."

"Reach for the stars," Gyant added. "We need you all to take our places, and not be afraid."

Cohen said the Wright students are ready for that challenge. Students in the health careers class there boast a 98 percent pass rate on the certified nursing assistant exam, Cohen said.

"The ones who came here are interested in health care careers, one way or another," she said. "We showed those in high school that they can progress into a junior college, and look how easy it is to progress into a four-year college."

5-12-03