Ten high school students and a few adult chaperones squeezed into a clean supply room at the Ambulatory Care Center’s Internal Medicine clinic. Boxes of pipettes, absorbent bed pads and surgical gloves of every size lined the shelves. A refrigerator full of specialty medications hummed in the background.

The clinic’s practice manager Noah Gilchrist brought the students to the supply room to illustrate an important point: Health care requires all kinds of people, not just doctors and nurses. They need procurement partners to stock supplies and instruments, inventory medicine, and test the wall sensors that regulate the supply room’s temperature and humidity levels.

“All staff come from different backgrounds, but they all want to care for people. That’s what they have in common,” said Gilchrist.

A common theme

The group of students was one of five roaming UC Davis Health’s campus in early April — 50 high school seniors and juniors in all. They are part of the Elk Grove Unified School District’s medical careers pathway at their school, Cosumnes Oaks. The program offers a three-course curriculum for students interested in pursing careers in health care.

After they filed off the bus at the hospital’s main entrance, the students gathered around Greg Woods, nurse leader and manager of the Medical Pathway Connect program.

In a sense, we are all connected at UC Davis Health.”—Gregory Woods, assistant nurse manager

“I like to refer to UC Davis as a small town,” said Woods. A hospital system needs all kinds of workers, from medical assistants to social workers to electricians, he added. It takes all kinds of people to make this work. “In a sense, we are all connected at UC Davis Health.”

The students split into their cohorts. Group 4 was led by Darrell Desmond, a nurse manager who has worked at UC Davis Health for 22 years.

“To be in health care, there are two requirements,” he told students. “Number one, you must like people. Number two, you must have empathy.”

The rest will fall into place.

The tour

From the hospital roundabout, group 4 walked to the Ambulatory Care Center, where they toured Internal Medicine and learned about specialties like nephrology and endocrinology. They visited the fine needle aspiration room where care teams diagnose thyroid conditions. They spoke with medical assistants who had worked as hair stylists or in food service before eventually choosing health care.

“Every job you have, those skills are transferrable to some part of health care,” said Gilchrist, who started his career as a lifeguard before eventually earning his MBA degree.

Next stop was the Cardiology clinic, where students heard from Nurse Leaders Ed Nicolas and Jessica Parker. They explained that the job of clinical care was to invest in patients’ preventive and long-term care, and ideally, keep them out of the hospital.

They led students to the lively and colorful cardiac rehabilitation space, where several patients rode stationary bicycles and walked on treadmills as therapists supervised. They were curious, asking questions about heart monitors and heart-friendly diets.

“Visiting cardiology opened up a new field I never really considered previously,” said junior Stephanie Chen. “I have a passion for the food we eat and exercise, and this experience has shown a field that combines a little of both. [I saw] that there’s different ways to help people, not just administering medicine and doing surgeries.”

The rest of the day’s tour was spent in the East Tower Neurology unit and main hospital distribution center — followed by lunch and a series of speakers, from pharmacy to administration and more.

Coming to conclusions

The Pathways program fits with UC Davis Health’s vision to transform the future of health care. Staff are literally helping mentor and train the future health care workforce.

“UC Davis Health is a teaching institution, and our staff take that very seriously,” said Woods. “I want students to experience that same feeling that I feel daily and to see their potential future careers in action.”

It worked for junior Sofia Dodson, who dreams of becoming a surgeon. “[The tour] was truly an eye-opening experience that fueled my passion to join health care,” she said. “Being able to see the amazing staff members and the passion that everyone has at UC Davis Health consolidated my resolve to join the medical field.”