Medical Explorers in North Hollywood

Concorde's campus in North Hollywood, CA teamed with a division of the Boy Scouts, called "Medical Explorers," to host groups of young people and show them up-close what a health care education looks like.

"We're helping high school students explore those careers we offer here at Concorde and other careers in which they are interested," said North Hollywood Campus President Carmen Bowen.

Concorde partnered with Kaiser in giving these young people exposure to health care education. Kaiser has been involved with Medical Explorers for 20 years but had reached capacity on how many youths they could take into the program.

"We talked with Kaiser about how they run their program," Bowen said. "We agreed to sponsor the students who couldn't get into their program."

First steps in introducing health care education

Fourteen students and their parents showed up Tuesday, Sept. 19, on the Concorde - North Hollywood campus to plan out the program and discuss next steps, Bowen said. The Concorde contingent included Bowen, the campus's Academic Dean Weyland Morse, Director of Admissions Allan Gueco, Learning Resources Coordinator Rocio Palmero, Nursing instructor Kimberly Navarro and admissions representative Nydia Fuentes.

Each student was asked to introduce themselves and describe the field or fields in which they are interested.

"Kimberly has sponsored something like this before, so she was made the point person," Bowen said. "The scouts will meet two days a month during the school year. They'll be divided into two divisions - students who want to be in leadership and those who don't. We'll have guest lecturers, hands-on activities and field trips.

"We decided our next meeting would be Oct. 18 to meet with the leadership group and discuss what we want to do."

Room to grow

While the inaugural meeting hosted 14 students on campus, Bowen said she hopes to see more in the near future.

"I think we could take up to 30 students," she said. "I hope it catches on."

Once the Medical Explorers program catches on and students are introduced properly to health care education, Bowen said it could provide a real service to a lot of folks in a variety of ways.

"We serve the community in helping young people choose what they want to do and be successful in their professions," she said. "A lot of students don't consider vocational school as a viable alternative. We want to expose them to our type of health care education. If we do a good job, we'll get the word out.

"We want to inspire young people at an early age. Overall, I think it's going to be a really good experience, for us, the students and the community."