A crowd listened attentively as two dentists shared their experience owning a dental practice together. The visiting professionals shared career insights with a PowerPoint presentation about a day in the life of a healthcare professional. This guest presentation was one of many opportunities that the Blue Scrubs club provided.
Blue Scrubs is a student-led group that focuses on providing members with healthcare career options. Seniors and presidents Alyssa Chung and Alyssa Lee founded Blue Scrubs last year. They hold club meetings in room 163 and provide students with medical volunteer opportunities. The club also hosts guest speakers from various healthcare professions who share their experience with members. Chung and Lee were inspired to create Blue Scrubs when researching medical careers.
“We were looking into medical fields and recognized that there wasn’t (a club) with direct connections to (some) medical fields,” Chung said. “Students at Conestoga didn’t have an outlet to connect to guest speakers.”
This school year, Blue Scrubs recorded over 200 members that attended its first meeting, an increase from the around 60 members by the end of last school year. According to the presidents, the guest speakers were a main component of the club’s recent success. Chung also attributed the increase in members to the wide range of club-provided opportunities.
“Blue Scrubs brings in guest speakers for them to meet people all along the medical fields,” Chung said. “Not just doctors, nurses, but also people like dermatologists and surgeons.”
The club posts an interest form and the topics covered in guest meetings are selected from the responses and ideas shared by attendees.
“We have provided a ton of healthcare professions. Once we receive that feedback we tie it back to what people want,” Lee said. “It (Blue Scrubs) is really geared toward what people in the club want.”
In the future, Chung and Lee hope to include more guest speakers in Blue Scrubs meetings and widen the club’s impact. Contacting more guest speakers and raising money for research and health-related initiatives are some of their goals.
“We’re planning to get money from the school through bake sales (and) fundraisers and donate that to cancer research,” Chung said.
Both Chung and Lee hope to pursue careers in the medical field. Lee feels that curiosity and sustained interest are some of the most important factors when considering a medical career.
“I’d say genuinely just be passionate because if you’re not willing to learn from these professions, if you’re not passionate, it’s going to be difficult,” Lee said. “Do something that you’re passionate about because if you put time and effort, you should want to do it.”
Viktor Wang can be reached at [email protected].
