2005-2006 In Review
What
an awesome year this has been for our club
activities. During our past four years of facilitating the
establishment of school clubs and supporting other health
occupations clubs, our Health Care Careers Program (HCCP) has worked
with twenty-seven school clubs representing eight counties in the
Greater Coastal Bend Area of Texas. Each of our Annual Conferences
has been attended by
increasingly larger numbers of participants, with 385
participants at our 4th Annual Future Healthcare Professionals
Conference 2006, hosted last January on the campus of Texas A&M University-Corpus
Christi. One club has been traveling over two-hundred-fifty round
trip miles to attend our annual conferences. For more on who and
where these clubs are, see our "Clubs Directory" page.
In this issue we want to
acknowledge the highly successful first year of six new school
clubs, which have been established with the assistance of HCCP.
Interestingly enough, each organization developed it's own personality and
approach to creating opportunities for career awareness and
exploration for its members. Following are some brief club profiles
and snap shots.
 Sterling Martin Middle School -
The Martin Health Care Careers Club (Corpus
Christi ISD) was not only our first new club for the year, but it
was also our first at a middle school. The Club's membership quickly
rose from the initial 22 students at the first meeting in September, to well over 40 by the end of the
school year. These highly motivated eighth grade students had an extremely busy
schedule of
activities: bi-weekly meetings after school, regular guest speaker
presentations, two major field trips, car wash fund raiser, caroling
at two nursing homes, attending our annual conference, and they
raised over $1500 for the March of Dimes Walk America event. The
Club's final activity was an Annual Awards Banquet, that was attended by club members,
sponsors, university representatives, parents, grand-parents, school
staff, and individuals from the medical and civic sectors of the community. Great job, Martin Trojans! Club sponsor is Nelda Cummings, RN.
 Falfurrias High School
- All members of the Falfurrias Health Care Careers Club (Brooks
County ISD) were members of their senior class. The
group elected officers, hosted guest speakers, and
attended our annual conference. The fact that all Club members were
graduating in May made the guest speaker visits and
career information highly timely and valuable, for all seniors were
seriously thinking about career and higher education decisions
facing them.
Congratulations, "Fal" Grads! This Club helped us pilot our first
telecommunications presentation in May, paving the way for more
presentations via telecommunications. Two Falfurrias High School staff members work
together to sponsor this Club: Jose Cadena, counselor, and Diana
Salinas, RN.
 Encino Charter School
-
Deep in southern Brooks
County, we find the home of our first Health Care Careers Club that included some of our youngest students
who are interested in learning about careers in health care
professions. The Encino Charter School Health Care Careers Club's 20 members
represented grades 6, 7, and 8. The Club members have had an early
start in learning about a broad variety of occupations and professions in
fields of health care. A fund raiser was held at this rural school
of 65 students to raise money for the Club t-shirts, which the members wore with
great pride to
our annual health care professionals conference, to which the
students were accompanied by several teachers and parents. The
students from Encino Charter School who are promoted to the ninth
grade attend school in Falfurrias, twenty miles north of Encino. Angela Perez, school secretary, is
this Club's sponsor.
 Mary
Carroll High School - The Carroll Club (Corpus Christi ISD) combined student
interest in both medical professions and allied health occupations by creating a
Health Care & Medical Forum as a campus organization. This group
of students hosted meetings with a variety of guest speakers, from
the medical community, as well as from academic institutions. As did numerous other school
Clubs in our service area, the Carroll Health Care & Medical Forum
attended our annual conference last January. With Cub members
expressing a high interest in medical professions, one of the
meetings focused on the rigorous and highly selective process of getting into medical school.
The Club sponsors are Sherilyn Calhoun, career counselor, and Cynthia Tanner,
biology teacher. These two dedicated educators demonstrated how
important team work can be in providing our youth with vital career
information and experiences.
 Roy
Miller High School - Joining us late in the
first semester was the Miller Health Care Careers Club (Corpus
Christi ISD). The group held meetings in
their school's Career Center, where they had access to many
resources related to career information. This Club organized in time
to attend our Annual Future Healthcare Professionals Conference 2006.
As did many other annual conference participants, the Miller Club
members found the Texas A&M
University-Corpus Christi nursing clinical laboratory of great interest. Career counselor Cecilia
Guajardo is the Club's sponsor.
 Wynn
Seale Middle School - Our third Health Care Careers Club at
a middle school was organized at Wynn Seale Academy (Corpus Christi ISD).
This first year Club had a membership of thirteen sixth grade students.
Impressive is the fact that these students met twice a month at 8:00
a.m. before school to learn about career opportunities in health care. The school nurse, one of the sponsors, prepared
nutritious breakfast tacos for the students at each meeting. (Our
own Senior Academic Advisor
had his share of tacos when he visited this fine group of students.) Club
members learned about health care career opportunities, received
excellent printed career profile materials, and
participated in a tour of Driscoll Children's Hospital, in Corpus
Christi, Texas. The tour was followed by
a fun lunch at a pizza establishment with arcade games. Who said
leaning can't be fun? The Club's sponsors are,
Diana Gutierrez, counselor, Nelda Gomez, RN, and Veronica Rodriguez,
English teacher -- another excellent example of sponsorship team
work.
 Club
Websites &
Logos - If
you didn't notice, each of the school names above is also a
hyper-link, one that will display the respective Cub's independent
website. Our Senior Academic Advisor, in the process of assisting
with the establishment of new clubs, creates club logos and assists
with the web mastering of the club websites. These websites provide
club profiles and they are also beginning to highlight some of the
group's activities. Note that some of these websites have links to a
Club activity slide show, allowing you to "join" the Club on a field
trip. You can visit these websites by clicking the
hyper-linked school names above. Also, note the club logo example at left.
Each new club has had a logo designed for its use on t-shirts and for club forms, such as letter head, programs,
posters, and other
publications.
 The
Annual Future Health Care Professionals Conference 2006 was
this year's main event, and what a marvelous one it was. The
Conference was coordinated by our Health Care Careers Program, a
program of the Texas A&M Health Science
Center, Coastal Bend Health Education Center, and hosted on the
campus of Texas A&M University at Corpus Christ, on January 25 2006.
There were over 385 participants, with students representing several
counties in our Coastal Bend service area. Student participants
represented grades six through twelve. Conference participants
learned about the use of modern technology in medicine, toured the
"state-of-the-art" Nursing Clinical Laboratory at TAMUCC,
Driscoll Children's Hospital Transport Ambulance, and Texas A&M
Health Science Center's Health Education Rural Outreach Mobile Clinic. Numerous vendors had
exhibits on display for the students to visit. Plans are already underway for
the 5th Annual Future Health Care Professionals Conference 2007, to
be held on February 1, 2007 -- mark your calendar.
 21st
Century Health Care Professions - Health Care
speakers
are coming to your school Clubs soon! Recently we conducted a pilot
telecommunications presentation to Falfurrias High School. During
Nurses Week, Nora Frasier, RN, and Vice President/Chief Nurse
Executive for CHRISTUS Spohn Health System,
made a presentation originating in the offices of the Texas A&M Health
Science, Coastal Bend Health Education Center, in Corpus Christi,
Texas. The connection to Falfurrias was facilitated by the Education
Service Center for Region 2. Falfurrias Club
members learned about career opportunities in the high
demand field of nursing. At the end of the presentation students
had an opportunity to
interact with Mrs. Frasier during a question and answer session.
Mrs. Frasier congratulated the graduating Falfurrias seniors, and
added that she is a Falfurrias alumna herself.
The
development of a health care speakers bureau will
provide a wide variety of topics for live and recorded presentations for
our Clubs and other schools who may be interested. This project is
an example of how organizations can partner to raise the level of
health education in their communities. Working with our Coastal Bend Health Education
Center are: CHRISTUS Spohn Health System, Driscoll Children's
Hospital System, Del Mar College, Texas A&M University at Corpus
Christi, and
the Education Service Center for Region 2. We are excited about this
new project that will provide students with current information
about career opportunities in health care, and that will feature today's professionals. The
telecommunications presentations will begin this Fall.
For our new readers: An understanding of
some system connections may be of interest. The Texas A&M Health
Science Center (TAMHSC) is located in College Station, Texas, and has within its
system six Academic Components and four Centers and Programs across
the state of Texas. One of
the Centers is The Coastal Bend Health Education Center (CBHEC),
located in Corpus Christi. Within CBHEC are several
Programs, one of which is the Health Care Careers Program (HCCP).
Part of HCCP's mission is to promote education about
career opportunities in health care, and to establish and support school clubs which focus on health care
occupations and professions.
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