Hospital stay helped delegate see need to boost health care career education for high school students
An idea came to Del. Terry Austin two years ago when he was lying in a hospital bed in Texas while recovering from a treatment related to cancer.
The nurses and doctors around him at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where he underwent bladder reconstruction surgery, told him about how they went to a special high school for teenagers wishing to enter the medical field.
DeBakey High School for Health Professions in Houston is an alternative to the traditional high school, offering a rigorous curriculum to better position students for college and future careers in the medical field.
Austin, R-Botetourt, wondered if that program could be replicated in the Roanoke Valley, where the health care sector is growing. He developed an idea for a pilot program in Roanoke city and Botetourt County for a similar curriculum to offer high school students.
“This is an opportunity to really set young people on a path to enter the medical field,” Austin said.
He pitched this proposal to Virginia’s General Assembly, and he’s trying to secure money through the biennium budget to make it happen.
To learn more, check out the whole article below.