WNE Summer Camp Aims to Put Young People in Career Pipeline

Fueling Interest in Healthcare

“Get nerdy.”

These are the two words of advice that Antonia Santos had for attendees of Western New England University’s recent Golden Bear Summer Camp, created to introduce students to health sciences careers.

That’s the approach she took when she attended the camp in 2020 as a sophomore at Springfield’s Central High School, an experience that motivated her to seek a career in pharmacology and eventually enroll in WNE’s PharmD program within its College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

She took a week off from her work as a pharmacy intern at the Walgreens on St. James Avenue in Chicopee to return to the Golden Bear Summer Camp, staged in late June, to act as a counselor, or mentor, to the campers, and encourage them to get nerdy, which, roughly translated, means to dive deeply into the subject matter, ask a lot of questions, immerse oneself in the material, and, while doing that, maybe get inspired to make this work a career.

“Experience everything, say yes to everything, within boundaries,” she said of her advice to campers. “You never know what you like and what you don’t like until you do it.”

And the campers we spoke with were following that advice.

“I’m learning about things I’d never thought about before, and it’s really making me interested,” said Alexa Thiesing, a camp participant who will be starting her senior year at Somers High School in the fall. “And I just want to keep asking more questions about the field I want to get into.”

“I’m learning about things I’d never thought about before, and it’s really making me interested.”

These sentiments help explain the motivation behind the camp, said Arin Whitman, clinical associate professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at WNE and one of the architects of the summer camp, noting that, this year, it hosted about 45 students, 15 attending middle school and 30 in high school.

She said there are critical shortages of healthcare professionals across several specialties — a trend heightened by the aging of the population and the retirement of Baby Boomers — and there is an ongoing need to introduce young people to the field and perhaps inspire them to join it.

And there are opportunities across the board, she noted, listing those that need professional degrees — physician, nurse, and pharmacist, for example — and those that don’t.

“We need lab techs that run the blood work; we need radiology techs and pharmacy techs and MAs [medical assistants] and people who can do coding,” Whitman said. “A lot of these jobs do not require four-year degrees or doctoral degrees, but many people just don’t know these opportunities exist.” 

The camp is designed to help enlighten participants and help put young people in the pipeline by providing early exposure to healthcare and health sciences careers through laboratory experiences, patient care activities, team-based problem solving, and direct interaction with professionals in the field, she explained, adding that there is a full week of activities and learning opportunities.

The program is also becoming part of a broader, year-round pipeline for student engagement, mentorship, and career exploration. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Western Massachusetts has secured funding to launch a site-based mentoring program with Duggan Academy through WNE’s Cub Connections program during the upcoming academic year. This initiative will complement the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences’ weekly “Roots of Wellness” sessions and help students remain connected to WNE mentors, faculty, and health sciences programming beyond the summer camp experience.

The camp is attracting young people from across this region and beyond, even the state of Washington.

Sriman Adusumilli is from Northboro, near Worcester — his parents drove him to the camp and then found a spot to get some remote work done — and he was participating for a second year. Like others at the camp, Adusumilli, who will start eighth grade in the fall, has an interest in science and healthcare, and the experience is helping fuel an already existing passion for the field.

“I had fun, and I was able to learn about things I never knew about,” he told BusinessWest, adding that his current ambition is work in healthcare, perhaps in cardiology.

For this issue and its focus on healthcare, BusinessWest looks at how this intriguing summer camp is giving young people something to think about — actually, many different things, and especially the many rewarding careers in this sector.

Following the Script

Santos joked that her experience with the Golden Bear Summer Camp was “the most fun I had during the pandemic.”

Looking back, she recalls the camp being remote, with her parents picking up all the materials she needed and bringing them home.

“I was doing all the labs we’re doing now inside my kitchen on Zoom — it was great,” she said, adding that the experience helped solidify a career interest in pharmacology that she traces to an eighth-grade field trip to WNE’s pharmacy program.

“It just caught my eye … I said, ‘if I like chemistry, I’ll do pharmacy,’ and then I did chemistry online during 2020, so that summer, my parents put me in the pharmacy camp, and I really loved it,” she said. “I love being behind the scenes, I love learning about the drugs … I thought it was something I could be really nerdy about.”

There’s that word again, and Santos would use it several more times as she talked with BusinessWest about the camp, which can help a participant decide if this is what they want to do for a living. Or not.

“It helps set the idea of what you want to do in the future,” she said, speaking from personal experience. “I know that, without this camp, I would never have set my eyes too much on pharmacy. This camp really helped me understand that I like healthcare, and this is where I need to be.”

Inspiring others to feel the same way is why the camp was created, said Whitman, adding that it began with a pilot program funded by a grant from Walgreens and has grown steadily since.

Now funded by the Massachusetts Health Counsel, the camp has been expanded to include both middle-school and high-school students, with the former being an important focus given that many of the latter already have an idea or two of what they want to do, career-wise.

“The idea is that is we start reaching out to middle-school students before they’ve decided, then maybe we can recruit people into health-related careers,” she explained, adding that WNE has partnerships with many local schools and recruits campers from them, but also from schools outside the region.

And while those with an expressed interest in healthcare careers are certainly welcome, the broad mission is to increase that pool of interest, she said, meaning organizers also welcome those who perhaps have an interest in STEM, but haven’t formed opinions on what they want to do and are open to listening and learning about the various opportunities within the healthcare sector.

“I know that, without this camp, I would never have set my eyes too much on pharmacy. This camp really helped me understand that I like healthcare, and this is where I need to be.”

“Our task is to convert them and maybe get them interested in a field they haven’t considered,” she explained, adding that, beyond exposure to careers, the camp helps make young people job-ready, with a focus on professional etiquette and how to behave in a professional setting.

The students are engaged in a number of activities, Whitman said, listing everything from compounding (a popular exercise) to DNA extraction; chromatography labs to work in a mock pharmacy, with the programs geared specifically for those at either the high-school or middle-school level, with some of the latter initiatives taking place at WNE’s Consultation and Wellness Center at the nearby Big Y on Cooley Street in Springfield. There, students can also learn about nutrition, ingredients in food products, and even how to stretch a food budget.

And while there is a focus on pharmacy, the camp also introduces students to other careers, including occupational therapy, nutrition, pharmaceutical engineering, biotech, EMT work, and others, Whitman noted.

For camp participants like Thiesing, the experience serves to heighten an existing interest, and even passion, for healthcare and helping others.

Her specific goal is a career in pediatric nursing, a pursuit inspired by others she knows in the field and her own desire to work with children. And the camp has only fueled her interest.

“I’ve always known that I’ve wanted to get into the medical field, but it’s only in the last year that I’ve really solidified what I wanted to do,” she said. “I want to go into nursing and make that my career. I love working with kids — I have two younger sisters — and I love helping and taking care of others.

“The camp is a great opportunity for people to learn about the medical field,” she told BusinessWest. “My mom’s friends are nurses, and I just want to keep asking questions and learning more about the field.”

And that’s what the camp is all about.

Dose of Reality

Santos, one of several who have made the leap from the Golden Bear Summer Camp to WNE’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, said her ultimate goal is to become what’s known as an ambulatory care pharmacist, a specialized clinical pharmacist who works directly with patients in outpatient settings, such as primary care clinics and hospital-based specialty centers.

She’s roughly halfway through her six-year program at WNE and has only gained new appreciation — and enthusiasm — for the work she intends to make a career.

It all started with that eighth-grade field trip, but her career path came into clearer view during summer camp at the height of a pandemic. It fueled a desire to get nerdy, and the program continues to do so at a time when the healthcare industry needs more young people to get inspired and, ultimately, get in the pipeline.