Westmoreland students explore health care career paths at Independence fair

Tenth grade Eastern Westmoreland Career and Technology Center student Zoey Wilders carefully stuffed gauze into a simulated wound to staunch the bleeding.

A few feet away, nurse and emergency room educator Kelly Bedner cheered her on.

“You’re saving that life,” Bedner said, ushering more students to try their hand at the station — a “stop-the-bleed” model tool that simulates how a nurse might help a patient with a gunshot wound in an emergency.

Bedner and several other nurses ran demonstrations, shared advice and explained their daily duties for a group of more than 50 students Monday at Independence Health System’s inaugural Career Fair at Westmoreland Hospital in Greensburg.

High schoolers from Greensburg Salem, the EWCTC, Hempfield Area and Greensburg Central Catholic traveled in small groups among a dozen stations such as Bedner’s, where experts ranging from nurses to EMS workers to surgeons, OBGYNs, cardiac care doctors and more presented on their areas of work.

Staff talked about their career specialties, engaged students in hands-on activities and answered questions from the audience. The fair was the first to be held at Westmoreland Hospital and grew out of a career fair held at Butler Health System locations before the system merged with Excela Health to create Independence Health System.

“Most people know there’s nursing, but they don’t know about noninvasive cardiology, or surgical tech,” said Rebecca Breegle, lead educator at Independence Health System. “It’s to give them some different ideas of what’s out there in health care.”

As health systems and hospitals around the state and country struggle with shortages, especially in the nursing field, events such as the one held Monday could be useful for directing students to potential job opportunities.

The U.S. has faced a drastic shortage of nurses since the start of the pandemic. According to a January U.S. Chamber of Commerce report, from 2020 to 2021, the number of registered nurses in the workforce decreased by over 100,000, marking the most substantial decline in the past 40 years. A Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania fact sheet from January states that hospitals across Pennsylvania face average vacancy rates of 14% for nurses.

For many students, the stations at the event were a glimpse into the busy lives of health care providers.

“It’s so interesting that there’s so much to do,” Wilders said of the nursing station. “(I) didn’t know that they did that much to help, in between going to someone else.”

Students explore

Through the event, Independence Health staff hoped to show high schoolers what they could expect if they went into different health fields — and introduce them to career options they might not have realized were a possibility.

“It was very interesting to see the different aspects. Especially in school, we don’t get to specify different aspects of the medical field, but I thought it was fun to see the details,” said Reagan Sands, a junior student at Greensburg Salem. “It’s opening my mind and opening my options up, just so that I can see different things.”

Karma Schall, also a junior at Greensburg Salem, was particularly interested in the obstetrics station and learning about how health care providers help with pregnancy. She is looking into OB/GYN care as a career.

The cardiac care station and interactive activities caught the eye of Alle Scarpa, a Greensburg Salem sophomore.

After participating in a CPR demonstration, Greensburg Central Catholic freshman student Reagan Fisher said she was thinking more about the importance of nutrition, and how CPR can be used to save someone’s life.

“There’s a lot more different options than people think in health care,” Fisher said.

Hempfield Area junior Evey O’Leary said she learned a lot from the station run in collaboration with Mutual Aid EMS.

“It’s a very hard career. I didn’t know they did literally everything on call — it’s very interesting,” she said. “It was just really interesting to learn about that.”

Willow Reed, a Hempfield Area senior, was interested in the variety of career paths that the experts discussed.

“Usually you just think there’s doctors and nurses, but there’s a lot of other options out there,” she said.

Opening the door to careers

For the health care professionals running each station, presenting to students was a way to get them interested in various fields of medicine, as well as give them pointers on how to achieve their goals.

Felicia Seder, a radiologic technologist, talked with students about which area colleges have good medical imaging programs. She also talked about her daily routine in the hospital.

Some students came in already focused on their prospective career. One student had specific questions for Seder about MRIs, she said.

“It was kind of nice for me, because I could gear her to what I knew about how to get there,” Seder said.

Not all students were as familiar with the tasks of a radiologic technician, she said.

“I think sometimes, it’s like, I didn’t realize you did all that,” Seder said. “Especially for X-rays, everbody thinks you’re just doing hands and feet and things like that. I don’t think they realize you go to the operating room, and go to different places in the hospital.”

Barbara Bumar, an obstetrics registered nurse, led students in interactive demonstrations and showed them tools used by labor nurses to care for mothers and babies.

Heather Magill, an echocardiographer, showed students an ultrasound machine used to check on heart problems. As students watched, she explained the conditions that an example video of a heart displayed.

“You can see it’s moving, but it’s not moving very well,” she explained. “That means it’s a weak heart.”

Like Seder, Magill said some students were familiar with and interested in heart care, but others are completely unfamiliar. She was able to answer the students’ questions about the career path required to get to her position.

“There’s a lot of jobs in the hospital that you don’t even know exist,” Magill said.