Alaska Labor & Workforce: Lunch and Learn Heathcare Industry

Welcome to all of the students joining us here, to the career guides joining us here, and to our, our medical professionals, allied health professionals that are here. I know this is our first Lunch and Learn for the year, and so just wanted to kick us off here. So I'm Zach Stinson. I'm the director of Pathfinder Solutions, and we are excited to support this this process, this project, and really our goal in these Lunch and Learns is for all of you students to have an opportunity to learn about the many different opportunities that you have ahead of you as you're looking at what's next after high school. This is a partnership.

This project is a partnership with the Department of Labor, and we have some incredible folks at the Department of Labor here. Demetria and Sarah that have been very involved in setting this up and future, future Lunch and Learns. We have Trish here with the Pathfinder Solution team that has done a huge amount of work to get this off the ground and will facilitate this. And I just wanted to say, I know we've got a lot to cover in our short amount of time here, but if there's schools or students that could just enter in the chat where you guys are coming from, and which, which communities you're coming from that are here. That's great.

This is the first, as I mentioned, of several. We will be doing these Lunch and Learns every month, and so if there's certain careers that you guys are interested in or certain jobs that you're interested in learning about, please let us know so that we can, we can be thinking about adding, adding those. And with that, I'll turn this to Demetria if she wanted to say anything at all from the Department of Labor, and then we'll turn this over to Trish to kick it off.

I just want to say thank you to our panelists for joining us this afternoon. I greatly appreciate the support and we're excited. This is the most number of people that we've had. Yay! So this is a great kickoff to our Lunch and Learn series for this school year.

So thank you all for being on with us.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Demetria. And with that, I'll turn this over to Trish to dive into our healthcare industry lunch and learn. So thank you, Trish.

Excellent. Thank you, Zach and Demetria. This is very exciting. Thank you for letting me be a part of this. I have the pleasure of introducing you to 3 panelists today from the healthcare industry and First of all, I guess I'll go ahead and remind everybody that's on that this is being recorded, and that also helps us to leverage this out to a wider audience.

Students, career guides, folks that couldn't get to it just during this timeframe will have a chance to go back and review what our panelists have shared with us. So I wanted to make sure I mentioned that. And then our first panelist— really, I just call them enthusiasts that work in this really important sector, the healthcare sector, is Captain Eliza Wheeler. Like Ms. Zugg was saying, my name is Captain, well, soon to be Wheeler, and I'm an Alaskan like all of you. I've been a nurse in the Army for 8 years.

I started out nursing on an inpatient floor, medical and surgical nursing. So that's people who go to the hospital to if they're sick or need to stay in the hospital post-surgery, the nurses that take, take care of those people. And then I worked on a COVID ICU for just a small period of time when COVID kind of first happened. Then I got moved into more of a hospital administrative and hospital operation role. I worked as the executive assistant for the hospital CEO.

Then I moved to Fairbanks and I worked in same-day surgery. So getting people ready for surgery and waking them up from surgery. Then I moved into another leadership role in Fairbanks, and finally I'm down in Anchorage working as a chief nurse of a primary care and immunizations clinic. So that's kind of my background and some of the different things that I've done. Um, one thing that I want to capitalize on is just to let you know how much diversity there is in healthcare field, specifically in nursing.

As you can tell, I've been able to do something different about every year and a half to 2 years. And so one cool thing about nursing is that if you don't like what you're currently doing, there's a lot of different opportunities and a lot of different avenues to go to change it up and keep it interesting. Uh, there was some pre-post questions that I answered, and so I'll go ahead and read those to you and then allow you guys to ask me any questions that you have for me. Uh, so what is a common misconceptions that students commonly have working in healthcare? I would say one common misconception is that it's always like those crazy, chaotic emergency situations.

Um, when you watch shows about the medical field, they're typically quite dramatic, and so you might have the idea that We're just constantly saving people's lives, and in some sectors of healthcare it is more than others, but I would say a lot of nursing, a lot of the day-to-day is a lot more boring, if you want to use the word, than that. It's, you know, making sure you're documenting accurately, making sure you're doing good assessments and you're seeing changes in your patients, coordinating follow-up, passing medication, that type of stuff. And then another common misconception is that once you graduate, you're gonna know exactly what you're doing. And I would say this is probably pretty accurate for any career field that you all will go into. You'll, you know, graduate high school and start in that career field or graduate college and start in that career field.

And you'll probably feel like, oh man, I'm supposed to know, supposed to know everything there is to know. And that's just not reality. Uh, there's a lot that you will end up learning on the job. If you go to nursing school, for example, they kind of just give you a, a broad baseline information to be able to get you started as a, as a nurse, and then you have to continue to grow and develop and educate yourself and get that on-the-job training depending on, um, what different, uh, field you kind of specialize in.

And, uh, let's see, if you were sitting where these students are today, what's one thing you would do in high school to give yourself a head start? So I would recommend getting as much exposure to the healthcare setting as possible. The way I went about this is I got my CNA while I was still in high school. I was pretty nervous that I wasn't going to be able to handle like the blood and all the, the, the kind of icky side of medicine. Um, I hadn't had a lot of exposure to that, and so I went and got my CNA.

And that— you're really, you're really dealing with a lot of bodily fluids as a CNA. So that was a good way for me to get my foot in the door and realize like, yes, this is something that I actually really enjoy. So Is this something that I can handle? So whether that's, you know, finding somebody that you could shadow, whether you have a program like CNA or medical assistant that you, that you can do, those are kind of what I would recommend before you commit to it, just to get exposure and make sure it's something that you're interested in. And then secondly, I would learn how to work with all kinds of people.

So, you know, if you're involved in clubs or sports in high school, that's obviously a good way to start. But much success in the healthcare field is actually just navigating personalities and relationships. You know, it's a— healthcare is a, is a, is a team sport in a way. There's a lot of different professionals that work together in order to care for the patient, and so being able to get along with all types of people, communicate with all types of people, is really going to set you up for success in the healthcare field. And then my last bullet I put here is study hard and learn the information, not just to pass the test.

So we're in this super cool setting where we have a lot of technology that is just rapidly developing. There's AI out there. I love to use AI. It helps me tremendously as a time-saving tool. But as a nurse, I can't rely on my phone to pull out AI and answer a question when, when a patient is asking me something.

I suppose I could rely on that, but it wouldn't build very good trust with that patient if they're asking me like, oh, what am I taking this medication for? Or why is my blood pressure this high? I have to be able to know that information. And so I would just, work on like memorizing and retaining information. Again, I started that in high school by doing CNA.

Uh, they made us memorize all types of stuff, all types of medical terminologies and numbers and metrics. Um, and so if you have an opportunity to do that type of stuff, I would start that now, and so that you can really work on knowing and retaining for when it's time to be able to communicate with the patient. You have that stuff in the back of your mind.

Is that enough information?

Sorry, I had to unmute here real quick. I always forget I muted. Yes, absolutely. That was fantastic. And I love how you referenced high school and how your journey got started.

So I'm going to open this up and I don't know if we can just let you, Ms. Demetria, are they able to use their mics? And just wanted to get some technical out of the way on this one.

You might be muted too. Sorry, if you raise your hand, I will unmute you. Excellent. So good. I'm going to let Ms. Demetria do the question and answer session if you're willing to help with that.

That'll be easy. So any questions about Mrs. Wheeler, Captain Wheeler's experience in healthcare? Even her high school question, those are awesome. And you're more than welcome to type your questions in the chat if you don't want to come off mute. How long did it take you to get your nursing license?

Oh yeah, um, that's okay. So if you're not familiar with how a nursing license works, You go to a nursing school, accredited nursing school. Once you graduate, then you have to take a board exam. It's called the NCLEX, and you could pretty much take that anytime after you, uh, graduate. And some schools will provide, uh, like study courses.

My, my school provided about a, a 5-day study course. So after we graduated, all the nurses hung out around school for 5 days and just kind of intensely studied for our board exam. And then some people took them right away. I had a couple of life things going on that summer, so I didn't take mine until July, but I did pass it on the first time. So I guess if that helps answer your question, about a couple months after I graduated college is when I got my— took my board exam and then saw Consequentially got my license.

Okay, another question in the chat is, do you have any recommendations for students who aren't sure what path they want to take in the healthcare field?

Uh, yeah, I mean, I guess exposure to the healthcare setting, whether that's, um, probably shadowing people is the best way. If you don't have opportunity to do that, maybe reaching out and making connections with different people that you know that work in different career fields. So I spoke with a doctor, I spoke with the PA, I spoke with a couple— which is a physician's assistant— I spoke with a couple different people, physical therapists, and kind of talked to them about what their career is like, what they like about it and don't like about it. And that's kind of another way where you can get— start to get an idea of whether it might be something that you have an aptitude for. But like I said, the best way is to, to to find somebody that you can shadow.

We have a lot of different types of healthcare professions in my clinic. We have physical therapy assistants, ophthalmology assistants, which is like your eyes, radiology techs, lab techs, MSAs, which is like a kind of like a front desk secretary, and then medical assistants, CNAs. So those are all different types of professionals that work in our building that require either no schooling after high school or like a 2-year associate's degree. So maybe you try and find a setting like this clinic where you can kind of go around to some different areas and shadow different people within the healthcare setting.

Okay, well, I mean, we have 2 more enthusiastic panelists, and so I want to make sure everybody has their time, but also Captain Wheeler, Zug Wheeler, has given us great information. So thank you, Ms. Demetria. I don't see any other questions in the chat, and of course you're monitoring hands. Thank you for the acknowledgement. So any parting words, and then we'll let you go back to your very busy workday, and we will move on to our next panelist.

Um, no, just thank you for allowing me to be here. I know I didn't get a lot of time to chat, so if there is any questions that come up, feel free to just shoot them to me in an email, and I'd be happy to connect with people, help answer their questions after this is over.

Excellent. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your day. Next up is a pharmacist, and this is Maisie Hirschman. And Maisie is going to kind of do the same format.

She'll tell us a little bit about herself and where she's at in her profession and any reflections on how she got there. And then do share the questions with us that you're going to answer, and then we'll do questions from our participants. So go ahead.

All right, well, hello everyone. My name is Maisie again. I am a licensed pharmacist. A little bit about myself, I went to high school in the Matsu Valley at Career Tech and I graduated and I immediately went into more of like a pre-med, I guess you could say, or pre-pharmacy track because I didn't get a bachelor's degree. So I was able to complete my 7— it's 72 credits that were required for my specific program for pharmacy school, so I was able to complete those in 3 years just working with the counselors there, like at the college.

They were able to help me kind of fast-track that, so I was able to knock a whole year off of my schooling, which in the long term was a lot. So I did, I did my undergrad classes in 3 years at UAA, and then I went and applied to pharmacy school. Which is a little bit of a long process. I could talk about that if anyone's interested, but, um, applying and then interviewing, and then I started, um, that August after I finished my classes in about May. Um, and pharmacy school is 4 years long, so I did get my doctorate of pharmacy.

Um, we call it a PharmD, um, and I completed that also here in Alaska on the UA campus, but the college is, um, through Idaho State University, which is in Pocatello and Boise, Idaho. They have kind of like a satellite campus here in Alaska, which is really cool. There's definitely some programs that do that throughout the country, but here in Alaska we have this program specifically where you're actually in the classroom with other students. So my class started out with about 10 students and we finished with 7, but across 3 campuses that was about 60 students. So I'm a little bit about like the platform there.

You're still in a classroom every day with your same students. It's virtual, so sometimes the professors they're speaking there in the classroom, or sometimes they're speaking virtually in the other campuses, and you just have like a live mic on your desk that you can talk and you participate in a lot of the lectures. And then we do have a lab there where we completed all of our labs that we needed to. There is another program here in Alaska, Alaska specifically, through Creighton, but I believe that's mainly all online, and you might travel to the school to complete just a few a few labs and such there, um, but that was mainly it for my schooling. Um, a little bit about how the pharmacy school program works.

So you, within the 4 years, you complete 3 years straight in the classroom, and then every summer you do about a 3-week, um, clinical experience, and that varies for where you go and how that program or how those programs work and how you get chosen for your site. But your 4th year is all clinical rotations, which I found was Obviously very helpful and very cool because you're not stuck in the classroom for 4 years exactly. Um, so the, yeah, the last year you complete, um, like 1,700 hours of clinical experience. Um, so I just completed that in May, um, and then I graduated and I was able to pretty much immediately apply to take my NAPLEX, which is the board exam that you have to take to get licensed. Um, in any college of pharmacy.

It's the same across the board, but the NAPLEX I was able to take in about June and I passed, and I have been working in more of a retail setting ever since.

So I'll go into the questions. The first one that I'm answering is, what are some rewarding aspects of working in healthcare that students might not expect? So I think the first one was really the connection that you make with patients and their families. Whether you're working in the community, in an outpatient clinic, or in the hospital, you just really make great connections. I know Alaska is unique because we're smaller and we sometimes see— I worked in hospital for 3 years.

You sometimes see a lot of the same patients and their families, but no matter where you work, you still get this really cool connection with patients. And I think for me, I knew that that was there, but I just didn't expect it to impact me in a way that that did. In working in like a retail setting in the community, you see your patients, you know, sometimes once a week.

Week, sometimes more, sometimes less, but you always have great conversation and you can always just make great connections with those people. Going further into that, I think there's a big sense of community. Again, you're building these new relationships often, you meet new people, you learn new things about them. It's just very— a very cool sense of community. For sometimes healthcare can be stressful jobs, and I think that really takes some of the stress away when you feel like you have the sense of community within your your job.

And then lastly, just you're making a difference and you are having a very positive impact on people's lives. So I think that, um, at the end of the day, again, no matter how stressful it is, if you feel like you made a positive impact or someone tells you about that, um, I think that it's, it's one of the coolest things about my job is just people telling me how much that I impacted them and their family sometimes. Um, the next question is, what qualities or personal skills make someone successful in healthcare? So I think communication is obviously a huge one. Communication, especially in my job, is super important in preventing errors within a team setting specifically, but this also just leads to preventing patient harm.

So one cool thing I think is that you have to be able to speak in a very high level to like your colleagues about different medical conditions or different medications specifically, but then you have to be able to relay that to a patient and to their family, and that probably isn't in as high level as you speak to your, like, the patient care team. So I think being able to understand the very high level and then being able to understand how you're going to relay that to somebody to make sense, um, is, is a pretty cool thing that I've learned and I've grown better at for sure. Um, you have to be able to adapt and change in healthcare. That's a big one. I think technology is always changing for sure, and guidelines are constantly changing.

That's what we follow in medicine for how we're treating patients, what they're being treated with. Those are constantly being updated, and then just within the health system that you work, policies are always changing. So it's, it's really great to be able to adapt to that. Problem solving is also very important in being able to work in fast-paced environments and sometimes high stress. Depending on where you work, different settings are going to be more high stress than others, but I think just being able to have a calm demeanor, and again, when you can problem solve, I don't think it's that stressful because you're not sitting there trying to figure out what you're going to do next when you can just quickly come up with a solution.

Um, being reliable and having a strong will to just want to learn and get better at your job every single day. You're going to constantly be learning new things, so I think again, just, um, even if your job takes, you know, little, like a small, just a 12-week course to get there, you're going to learn so many things within that job and just always be willing to learn while you're there during the day. And then lastly, very specific to healthcare, but being able to put patient— your patients first and having empathy and compassion. Building trust with your patient is huge. It's definitely part of my job every single day, and they're putting a lot of times the most like vulnerable and scary aspects of their lives into your hands.

So I don't think that as healthcare providers we should take that for granted, and we should just be able to understand that we're working often with patients' lives and again, the most vulnerable aspects of a lot of these patients. Students' lives. My last question is, what misconceptions do students commonly have about working in healthcare? And I think a lot of this is just that the team is made up of so many different aspects, and not all are necessarily hands-on doing, you know, the nurse and doctor things with direct patient care. For instance, a team that I may work with in the hospital may look way different than a team that I'm going to work with in the outpatient facility.

But here's just a a little example of who I might work with while I'm rounding during the day in the hospital. So usually there's a doctor or resident doctor that is there. There might be a physician's assistant, a PA they call them, or a nurse practitioner might also be there. You're going to have your nurses that are taking care of the patients. You're usually going to have a pharmacist on the team.

There might be a CNA or a certified nursing assistant or medical assistant that's also taking care of the patient and is on the team. You often have physical therapists or occupational therapists. There's respiratory therapy that's often there. There's dietitians taking care of the patient's daily diet. Um, you often have phlebotomists that are there drawing labs, and then you have your social workers, your case managers, and then sometimes there's like a counselor, psychologist that are also on the team.

Um, so I think that just, uh, hearing how many different aspects there are to the team, um, it's also important to know that not all healthcare careers require this extensive of schooling. They don't require 7-8 years of schooling like I had to go through. Um, so phlebotomist, respiratory therapist, medical assistants, certified nursing assistants are just a few that don't require your traditional 4-year degree, and some are just certifications that can, can be completed in as little as about 6 to 12 weeks. Um, I also think, uh, social workers and case managers, um, they're very hands-on in the aspect of they are dealing with a lot of the patients' families, their personal lives, a lot of their social determinants of health, we call it. So any factors at home, transportation, money issues, anything revolving around that.

Even they deal a lot with insurance. They're a huge help and they're a huge aspect of the healthcare team. And I think a lot of people don't maybe realize that or see that within healthcare, but they— I think that is one super cool job where they're not again directly having hands-on typically the patient, but they're there sometimes in the room helping the family and also helping um, the patients. So those are my 3 questions, um, but if anybody has any questions, I'll answer those or put them in the chat as well.

Okay, excellent. Thank you, Maisie, for sharing. I love that you also reflected on the different levels of schooling and training. The ladder, if you will, that folks might take to get to a full pharmacist. But while we're waiting for a question, I might ask you to reflect on your start in a pharmacy that was like maybe even right out of high school.

Yeah. So in Alaska specifically, at the age of 16, you are able to get a pharmacy technician license through the state of Alaska. You just apply for it. It does cost some money and you'll have to fill out some information, but this is not like a certification necessarily that requires any training or schooling. This is simply just a license saying that you, you are licensed within the state of Alaska to be a pharmacy technician.

And I did this right out of high school and I was able to get amazing training. It helped me so much in my pharmacy schooling, specifically in my first year you're learning a lot of drug brand generic names, what the drug does, and I was able to take my, uh, I had about 2 years of experience at that point in the retail pharmacy and use that for my schooling. And I think it was just so beneficial even talking to my other classmates that didn't have that experience before pharmacy school. So that was super helpful. You're able to do that at 16 now in the state of Alaska.

Again, it doesn't require any training or schooling beforehand. They just train you on the job, teach you their system, and you're able to do that. Yeah, that's 16 now.

And then I think there's a question here: What are some different settings that a pharmacist might work in? So the scope is actually very broad and very huge. People might not realize that Um, but it is all over the place. We have pharmacists in hospitals, we have them in various outpatient clinics, um, we have pharmacists obviously in like your grocery store. That's what I refer to as retail, or they like to call them community settings.

You have pharmacists, uh, so integrated in the clinic, like I said, they're seeing patients just like you would see like your primary care provider or medical doctor, anywhere from like 10 to 15 patients a day. We're managing disease states, we're prescribing medications, we're following following up with you. So almost just like your primary care provider, pharmacists are really integrated into clinics such as those examples. Now, a lot of pharmacists, you can go work for insurance companies. They do a lot of— we call it medication therapy management, but they look into patients who are with those specific insurance companies, and they do very cool, like, recommending different therapies and such with their disease states.

Pharmacists can work in what we consider industry, which is like sometimes drug manufacturers, but they, they have various roles within industry. A lot of pharmacists go into industry and they actually just educate people on new drugs and what those drugs do that are new and on the market.

Pharmacists have different broad scopes in different states, so that will limit kind of what you see in certain states. But Alaska, we just passed a bill that actually allows us to have a much more broader scope than we were able to starting in January of 2027. So those are just a few examples of what you might see.

Excellent. Well, that is quite a spectrum. And again, I thank you for kind of elaborating on how you could you can really start right out of high school on this journey and then also go all the way through and become an actual doctor. So, um, okay, well, I see Ms. Demetria is probably also monitoring the chat, and thank you for doing that, Maisie. I think it's our time.

You did a wonderful job, and we're going to move on to our third presenter. So again, we're happy if you're okay to share an email or a contact if other questions to come up.

Of course, thank you for having me, and you guys are welcome to email me if you have any questions at all. Excellent, thank you. Okay, so hopefully Ms. Haley Abercrombie is with us. I'm Haley, I work in Health Information Management. I am a manager now in a department of about 20 people.

I've been in my department for 9 years now, um, started out just scanning paperwork and just moved up from there. Right out of high school, I actually got my CNA license. I went to Hutchison in Fairbanks, so if there's any Hutchison students here, please chime in. Um, yeah, it was a great school. I took college courses while I was at Hutchison, went right into the field as soon as I graduated.

Also started taking college courses right out of high school. Did not have a plan whatsoever. I knew I didn't want to do nursing. I wanted to do something in healthcare. Just knew that I liked helping people.

So eventually found my path here, did a couple jobs in reception, insurance verification, that sort of thing.

Um, sorry, I'm getting over a cold, so my voice is a little bit rattly. Um, yeah, I did a little bit of CNA work, really just a few months, realized I was not good at the hands-on stuff and I wanted to do like administrative ancillary type work instead. So I applied for a job in health information management, didn't really know what I was getting myself into. And that's part of why I'm here too. I just want to tell you guys more about what that entails.

Yeah, it's been great. I just want to echo some of the things the other presenters said. So healthcare is full of change. It's also full of options. Even if you go into nursing, it doesn't have to be like bedside hands-on nursing.

There's leadership roles as well. I think it's mostly just about figuring out what you like to do and what you're good at and kind of marrying those two and making it all make sense. Yeah, health information management is kind of filling a lot of gaps between different areas on a regular basis. I talk to our legal department, compliance department, patients, IT, literally everybody. We kind of connect all the dots between those people.

So that's fun. I do a lot of investigating situations, deep diving into problems and process improvement. So when I say workflows, I mean, that's improving like the way we go about our work. Always want to be efficient. I mean, just problem solve as we go.

So keeping up with the changes and keeping up with what patients need as well. And just really listening to what people need. So yeah, moving into the questions. First one I want to talk about are qualities and skills that make someone successful in healthcare. I'm glad I'm going third too, because I know some of these actually align with what was mentioned already.

First off would be a passion for helping others and really that deep down need to just help other people and do that for work. It's not for everybody. So experience and education are super valuable. That'll teach you a lot about yourself. You'll figure out what you love doing, what you hate doing, or if something is just kind of neutral.

I love caring for other people, and in my career experience, I learned that hands-on is not for me. I wouldn't have known that had I not tried to be a CNA briefly. There's lots of other ways to care for people. Listening to what patients have to say, helping them navigate care, not relying on AI, minimal reliance on AI. Um, a really good way to build that skill is actually doing research papers.

I hated doing research papers, but I procrastinate and I push myself to do it in a quick time frame. Um, that pushes you to research well, review a lot of resources quickly, take all that information and come to your own conclusions. So being able to form your own opinions, not just take things at face value, and account for multiple different perspectives, and then make your decisions based on that. That is going to be useful across pretty much any part of healthcare, um, not always relying on like step 1, 2, 3, but seeing the situation fully and then going from there. Um, memorization too.

I mean, you need to know how you memorize information the best. Not everyone's the same. Some people like flashcards, some people like hearing it a few times, or just practicing the information. Um, and you won't know unless you do it. So really knowing how you memorize implementing different tools and then sticking with them.

You can learn something in high school or in college. If you don't use that in your career, eventually you're going to forget it. Um, so also reviewing information from time to time if you don't want to lose it is important as well. Um, and yeah, just treating every situation as unique. Um, if you're able to kind of synthesize information, look at the whole picture, then you're going to be able to handle problems a lot more effectively.

And you won't get so stressed out. Welcome back. Thank you. Sorry for the little break there. I think I was on number 3.

So important things in healthcare. Third would be the ability to break down problems into small pieces, and that's so you can understand them better and be more likely to solve them. We can't solve every problem, but we can at least break it down and see if we can get to the point of finding an answer. Some people find this really tedious. Some people find it invigorating.

I actually take pride in being the person to stop, reevaluate the situation, and then come up with creative solutions that others might not have considered. There's not always room for creativity in healthcare, but solutions are one of those things you can really think outside the box, use that different part of your brain, and get some variety in your day because not everyone likes to do data entry or just send emails. But if you get to kind of think outside the box, be creative, that can be more engaging at work. So if you find yourself in courses, programs, or jobs that feel like walking through mud, and I definitely have myself, chances are there's something else that better fits your skills and interests. I actually changed degree programs 4 times before I figured out what I wanted to do and what I was good at, and eventually did a bachelor's in management.

So jobs can be hard and rewarding. Just make sure they are rewarding for you and keep up with self-care too, because things can kind of wear away at you. Health care can be hard. I mean, you hear tough stories, have situations that are stressful. So if you take care of yourself and it's something you really want to do, you can make it through those tough days.

I do recommend taking the Deloitte Business Chemistry— Chemistry test. It's actually online and it's free. I think it's just 20 questions and that can give you a bit of a direction if you don't have one and see what fields you might work best in, you know, learn a little bit more about yourself in the professional sense. Next is what career paths can students enter with a 2-year degree, certificate, or other training? My company actually has apprenticeships where we hire people on, put them through an apprenticeship program, and then they graduate that and become employed with us.

Also have student learning programs. We've had some interns in my department, students through the SHIP program, and there's other programs as well. We do hire a lot of staff in entry-level positions. Um, so just know there's a lot of options out there, and a lot of places do have tuition assistance. So if you're not sure what you want to do, you could start somewhere, get your foot in the door, and then, you know, start taking courses that help you grow.

We do hire people too that have no healthcare experience. So it can be someone that worked at Walmart, worked at Fred's, and then they want to come work in healthcare. If you can commit to learning, then you can do very well. Again, I started with my CNA license only, and then I worked full-time while I did night classes and online classes until I had my bachelor's degree. So there's lots and lots of options out there.

Just continually evaluate what you want to do and what you enjoy doing. Really take note of the things that you specifically like. Maybe other people you're around are complaining about them. They don't want to do them. And you're just like, man, I love this.

I want to do this every day. Try and translate that into something you could do at work all the time. I like to write. I get to write every single day. It is writing emails, but I take that opportunity to, you know, have some fun with it.

So, yeah. Excuse me, human resource departments, career counselors, and mentors can kind of help you pick a direction. Next question is, what is something you wish you had known before starting your healthcare career?

I wish I had known about the options outside of nursing. I went to Hutchison. A lot of my friends were in the CNA program, and right out of high school they went into nursing school. I just, I knew that wasn't for me, but I did feel a little bit pressured. I didn't really know what I wanted to do for quite a while, I was lucky to start my healthcare career as a CNA because I learned that I didn't want to be hands-on.

So after that, I found my way to my current job, current department, and first thing I did was scanning paperwork, but I fell in love with the detective work I got to do and the process improvement that I was able to do. And yeah, the rest is history. So if you have any interest in health information management, you can look at AHIMA. Is the American Health Information Management Association. There's a website that has a bunch of career information.

And last one here, if I was sitting where you are, what is one thing I would do to give myself a head start? In short, take yourself seriously. An example I have, I showed up to my first ever job interview, which was at Subway, wearing a blazer which didn't quite fit the, um, situation. But that just shows you how seriously I took myself, and it was just the start of the career I'm in now. So I would say take full advantage of school programs.

If you can do the EMT program, CNA program, or earn college credit in high school while it's discounted, definitely do that. It will give you a head start, and it helps you explore and find out what you enjoy and what you're good at. Um, let me look at the chat here.

Thank you, Haley. This is Trish. Uh, yeah, I was going to mention, thank you for looking at the chat, and I will put 2 quick ones on top of mind, uh, after you address this question. And that is, um, what's considered non-traditional occupations? So, uh, maybe, uh, different genders, males in healthcare, female, you know, how that, uh, how that has evolved in healthcare.

And, um, Also, um, uh, I'll think of the— oh, I know not all of our students have the access to these wonderful CNA programs, but, uh, possibly reflecting on how important, like, anatomy and physiology or just basic science classes in high school might relate to healthcare. So those are two top of mind, but yes, I think Jasmine has a question on, on the chat.

Right, and I think that was, um, what careers are there in health information management? I think a lot of hospitals, um, have coding and health information management as one department. Um, there are a lot of ways to get certified in coding online. Um, I did not go that route. It's actually separate at my hospital, so we have coders that work in their department, and then we have health information management department.

So we do a lot of the chart certification, scanning, release of information, the patient interaction side of it, and then coding is more on the back end on the computer, putting codes into the system and analyzing the records. Yeah, I think job-wise it depends on how big the company is, right? Where I'm at, we have health information management as its own department. The smaller offices I worked at still had a lot of the job components but I was working at the front desk, verifying insurance, releasing records, scanning records, doing a lot more of those jobs, just not at the depth that I do it now. So if you want to kind of figure out what you want to do, smaller offices can be great for that as well because you're going to be doing a lot of different things, whereas a bigger organization you have like one specific job that you get to really dive deep into.

Excellent. Thank you, Hailey. And the chat is still open if— and we have a little bit of time left, so we have other questions. I will just kind of repeat, if you can hear me, if you can reflect a little bit on— we call it non-traditional occupations. An example would be like women in welding or women in construction.

And I think males in healthcare in the past have been considered that. So might reflect for our audience on the value of that and diversity. And then also, so there was that one, and then also other high school classes if you don't have a CNA or paramedic in your high school, you know, science classes that are important in healthcare.

Yeah, I think everything does build. I really, really enjoyed biology, did not enjoy physics, and that tells you a lot about yourself. You're like, hmm, I should probably do something related to the body system.

Um, I really enjoyed medical terminology as well. I had the— I was fortunate to take a lot of classes related to healthcare in high school, um, so those really resonated with me. Did some exploring though. I mean, take classes that are kind of out of your comfort zone just to see what it's like. High school is a great time to do that, um, and like I said, sciences, you got to figure out what you like to do.

It's not one size fits all, um, so I would Biology is a really good one, anatomy and physiology. And if you take physics and you don't like it, maybe health information management is a path you could go on. It is a very niche field, I will say, um, and I guess non-traditional because you don't need a degree to come in necessarily. If you want to be in healthcare leadership, degrees will absolutely help you. Um, work experience is is super valuable as well.

So if you can blend both at the same time and make that happen, then you're going to be kind of beyond where someone would be if you're just going to school, not working, and then you get your degree and you have no work experience. I think people like to see a blend of both. Excellent. Thank you. So I'm looking at the time.

We have about 7 minutes left, and I am going to kind of sit back and see if we have Oh, good. There's some, some opportunity in the chat to talk about anatomy and physiology and some other great science classes, maybe watching videos of surgery. So if you can see the chat, there's some good information there. And Sam says, are there any formal programs in Alaska for getting high school students connected with job shadow opportunities? So, well, Sarah just put a resource in the chat.

I don't know any specific organizations, but I know that our Key Night Job Center has a really great partnership with their school district for job shadowing opportunities, and I know healthcare is in that round of opportunities.

Sarah Deutschman, did you want to unmute and share any others that you know of? Hi, yeah, so I did put the Foundation Health Partners one in because that is the one that I'm most familiar with, and then I was just kind of on Google looking for other ones from other regions. But if other people in other regions know of more specific stuff about job shadowing, please let us know, but I'll continue to put some in there. I did want to mention that we are, at least here in the Interior, we are very, very in need of pharmacists. So if you are interested to go to school for a long time and learn some really great stuff, there will certainly be a job waiting for you.

Thank you, Sarah.

I think the only thing I will add, and really appreciate the question around the interest in job shadows, I would just add that I know that there's both students and there's career guides that are on this in our Lunch and Learn. And so students, if this is a path that you're interested in, I would, I would suggest reaching out to your career guides. And career guides, you have a team of folks here to kind of brainstorm. Some districts have access to support job shadows, but we also— this project is really a partnership with the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, the university system, and then there's some employer partners, so we're happy to brainstorm and help how we can to— if there's students that are interested in that.

I also will— well, I'll pause there if there's any other discussion around the job shadowing and just the opportunities around the state. So yeah, thanks for bringing up the important question here. Any other, any other comments around just kind of job shadowing or how we can support students that have an interest in going down a healthcare pathway? Okay, I'm going to then, Trish, if it's okay, maybe I'll wrap us up here for our Lunch and Learn. Just wanted to just say thank you so much.

Thanks, Demetria, and this incredible Department of Labor team that's just leaning in to try to see how we can help connect our rural students with the many opportunities that there are for careers in Alaska. So thank you, Demetria. Thanks to your team. Big thanks to Trish for all of your coordinating and facilitating to make this panel happen. I just want to give a big thanks to our three panelists for taking some time out of their busy, busy and important work to share with our students.

Thanks to all of the school staff and the career guides for getting you students here. And then my last thanks really goes out to all of you students that are just taking this time to learn about what's next in your lives. Next month we are going to be having a dive into the construction industry. The following month is going to be really focused on mining careers. So stay tuned, feel free to share this out with other students that you think would be interested in this, and we will follow up with any information, email addresses to the participants here from the panel.

So really appreciate all of your time making this opportunity happen. Thank you. Let's see. Oh, I see a question from Pam. Trish, did you want to speak to the— when we're offering this, the schedule.

Sorry, I guess I was too high up in the chat. Lots of thank yous. Are these meetings taking place? Yes, last Tuesday, and we are going to move them, I think, to noon. Demetrius— Miss Demetrius, sorry— because that was the results we got when we asked the majority of career guides.

Kind of, we tried to— it's not a big difference, but they are recorded and they will be the last Tuesday at noon, and we will send out a kind of standing invite. But because this one was off by a half an hour, we wanted to wait to get to where it'll hit your calendar last Tuesday at noon, and we'll do a recurring invite. And we're going to meet a little bit later this week, and, and as soon as we do that, uh, expect to see that email come from us with that invite.