{"id":75047,"date":"2024-09-16T09:22:50","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T13:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/earlham.edu\/?p=75047"},"modified":"2024-09-19T08:05:18","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T12:05:18","slug":"from-metatarsals-to-neurons-earlhamites-at-2024-hosa-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earlham.edu\/news-events\/from-metatarsals-to-neurons-earlhamites-at-2024-hosa-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"From Metatarsals to Neurons: Earlhamites at 2024 HOSA Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Students Linh Nguyen, Jasmyn Meeker, and Ashutosh Mishra pose with their earned medals at the HOSA International Leadership Conference<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
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Earlham College students won big over the summer during the annual international HOSA conference<\/a> in Houston, Texas.\u00a0Earlhamites Jasmyn Meeker, Ashutosh Mishra, Linh Nguyen and Luticia Youssef all represented the College over the summer in the respective categories of sports medicine, medical terminology, behavioral health, and pathophysiology.\u00a0\u00a0Meeker placed second place in Sports Medicine in the International competition, with Nguyen and Mishra both placing within the Top 10, but all achieved significant success at this exciting competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI found the conference pretty interesting, it\u2019s different than anything I\u2019ve done before,\u201d says Meeker, a Biochemistry major and junior at Earlham. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

HOSA is a global student-led organization that prepares high-schoolers and collegiates to become the next leaders in the health professions. In addition to providing a unique program of leadership development and recognition for students, HOSA annually holds competitions at the regional, state, national and international levels where students can test their mettle and medical know-how against other schools and institutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to make sure our students have a career-discerning experience while here at Earlham, and HOSA serves that role,\u201d says Peter Blair, Earlham\u2019s Director of the Center for Global Health and a professor of biology. He thanks Earlhamite and current global programs coordinator Megan Bennett, alongside Earlhamite Brittany Timmerman, both graduates from the Class of 2020, for being the students to lead the charge for establishing a HOSA chapter on campus. For Bennett, she and three other Earlhamites competed in the international conference in Dallas, Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prep for the conference includes lots of studying, on top of other plans.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cAll of us had to be proactive in studying,\u201d says Nguyen, a pre-med neuroscience major at Earlham. \u201cThere are plenty of subjects you would never know if they would cover, and we had two months to prepare for the state level, and around the same amount of time to prepare for the international level. Honestly, it was a bit intense in terms of what we had to learn in two to four months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intense? Absolutely \u2014 but also rewarding, and a staple for Earlham, with this being one of several placements in the top performers at the HOSA international conference over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The competition is fairly simple in practice; participants have the option of either a multiple choice or activity test, depending on the category they\u2019re competing in. Outside of the competition, attendees can visit expos where vendors display and demonstrate new medical technologies, or schools advertise for upcoming programs. There\u2019s also the opportunity for sight-seeing, which Meeker, Nguyen, and Mishra absolutely took advantage of. The NASA space center in Houston was a fan favorite of the trip.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Ashutosh Mishra poses with an astronaut at the Space Center Houston <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Nguyen credits Blair for getting her involved, saying that she was curious and just wanted some additional career experience. As Meeker would tell it, with a smirk on her face, she didn\u2019t really know what she was getting into until after the fact, but joined purely for the experience and out of curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEspecially with it being an academic competition, that was new for me, I\u2019ve never really experienced anything like that before.  I really enjoyed it and I learned things as I went along,\u201d says Meeker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All three agree that the experience was intense but are grateful to Earlham for preparing them to thrive at the conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cResources to prepare for the conference aren\u2019t free, and that\u2019s one of the biggest hinderances for participation,\u201d says Mishra, a sophomore Biochemistry major who had previous experience with HOSA through Richmond High School. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specifically, Mishra placed fourth in medical terminology at the international conference, and is next in line to be Earlham\u2019s student leader for HOSA. Its former student leader, Nico Quijano Franco, has since graduated and become a career coach and pre-health adviser for Earlham\u2019s Center for Career Education. Blair is also preparing for sabbatical, so Mishra will have big shoes to fill this upcoming year. It\u2019s no sweat for him, though, and he\u2019s eager to get more students involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really wish and feel like more students should get involved,\u201d says Bennett, \u201cespecially if they\u2019re interested in medical humanities, global health, and social justice. HOSA conferences have a habit of emphasizing those in their programming. I love HOSA, it opened doors for me and made my master of science degree possible.\u201d Bennett was able to pursue a Master\u2019s in Global Health with a focus on International Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim after graduating from the College in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs far as the academic side and being prepared, I feel like my coursework prepared me, especially the ones steered towards my interest in sports medicine,\u201d says Meeker. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just knowing stuff, it was understanding it and knowing how to apply it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Blair agrees and notes that he\u2019s impressed by how young our students were for this year\u2019s competition. The youthfulness of this year\u2019s participants is something to celebrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe students who went on to the international conference in Houston are still early in their careers at Earlham,\u201d says Blair. \u201cI think that\u2019s remarkable. They\u2019ve already gained enough experience, exposure, and intellectual capacity to compete at the highest level. That excites me as the director of the Center for Global Health and makes me especially proud of their accomplishments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Story by Earlham writer\/editor Jay Kibble<\/em>, for Earlham’s Office of Marketing and Communications <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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About Earlham College <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlham College and Earlham School of Religion foster a collaborative learning community that inspires and motivates students with transformative opportunities and experiences so they can become catalysts for good in a changing world. Located in Richmond, Indiana, Earlham is one of U.S. News & World Report\u2019s Top 100 national liberal arts colleges and offers one of the top 20 classroom experiences in the nation, according to the Princeton Review.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Media contact<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Brian Zimmerman<\/strong>
Assistant vice president of strategic communications
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Email: zimmebr@earlham.edu
Phone: 765.983.1256<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n