First Hopi health career fair a success

POLACCA, Arizona — More than 800 students visited 50 health care vendors during the first health career fair at Hopi Junior/ Senior High School March 14. Students from Hopi Jr./Sr. High School, Dilkon Junior High and Ganado High School, attended the fair to learn first hand about opportunities in the health profession.

Hopi High School already has a health education program — Two Plus Two Plus Two—in conjunction with Northland Pioneer College and Northern Arizona University. The program, which has drawn honors from Harvard University, allows Hopi High students to take classes that give them concurrent credit at Hopi High and NPC. These classes are transferable to NAU. Hopi High School pays the NPC tuition for students who take concurrent classes.

“This is the best that could happen to our kids — and they can’t afford to pass up this opportunity,” said Louella Nahsonhoya, director of the NPC-Hopi branch. “If I would have had this chance when I was in high school, I would have taken advantage of it.” She said there has been a lot more interest in health careers since the new Hopi Medical Center opened about one year ago.

Dushon Monongye academic counselor at Hopi High School, said she was thrilled that the medical vendors repeatedly commented that they were impressed with the students from Hopi Junior Senior High School for showing a strong interest in health careers.

Nahsonhoya said Delphine Hosteen, a medical office student at NPC, landed a volunteer post at Hopi Medical Center through the job fair.

Lance Diskan, state coordinator for the Health Careers Opportunity Program based out of NAU, said Hopi High School has been extremely active in terms of developing health care programs for its students. He said this is a natural progression with the creation of the new Hopi health care center.

“We want to help the students find what they like to do,” he said. “We want to educate them on their options. Some think the only medical careers available are brain surgeons or nurses, but there are more than 200 careers available in health with a lot of jobs in health promotion/disease prevention.”

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