A. How many of you had to go to a physician before you came to school this fall?  How many of you had to get shots?  Who gave you the shots? What was that like?

B. Have any of you guys ever thought about being a physician or a nurse when you grow up?  How about a dentist?  Why?  What do you like about the idea of being one of those three things?

C. Physicians, nurses and dentists...those are three different jobs you can have when you grow up.  What do they have in common?  What's alike about those three jobs?

They are all in the health care field; all those people take care of your body. They make sure it's healthy so that when you come to school you can be all you can be.

What if I told you that those three - physicians, nurses, and dentists - are not the only ones who take care of people's bodies?  What if I told you that there are 250 different kinds of health care workers?  So, if you didn't want to be a physician or a nurse or a dentist, you could be an athletic trainer.  Anybody know what that is?

Athletic trainers take care of the human body by helping athletes - basketball, football, and soccer players, for example - get themselves back in shape after they've hurt themselves.

Another health care job you could have would be a radiologic technician.  I don't suppose anybody knows what that is?  Has anybody here ever broken a bone? Did you have to have an X-ray?  Well, the chances are the person who gave you the X-ray was a radiologic technician.  An X-ray is a picture of your bone taken with a special machine that sees through the skin. 

Let's talk about some other health care jobs you might want to have some day:

1. Physician Assistants help out physicians by checking out patients, figuring out what's wrong with them, and deciding how to make them better.

2. Pharmacy Technicians work with pharmacists.  Does anybody know what a pharmacist is?  If you get a prescription, you take it to a pharmacist.  A prescription is physician's order for medicine, and the pharmacist is the person who gets that medicine together for you so you can take it and get well.

3. Radiologic Technologists take pictures of a part of the body for the purpose of making a diagnosis, that is, figuring out what the patient's problem is.

4. Respiratory Therapists (does anybody know what respiratory means?  It means having to do with breathing.)  Respiratory therapists help patients with breathing problems like asthma.  Does anybody here have asthma?

5. Athletic Trainers take care of athletes, like basketball players, who have hurt themselves.   

6. Physical Therapists work with people who have been disabled by illness or accident.  Does anybody know what disabled means?  It means having a part of the body, like an arm or a leg, that doesn't work the way it should.  Physical therapists use exercise, massage, and other things to help their patients feel better.

7. Occupational Therapy Assistants teach disabled patients how to get around.    

8. Dispensing Opticians.  Who here has been to see one of these folks? They make and fit eyeglasses and lenses.   

9. Surgical Technologists prepare operating rooms for surgery, help out during operations, and take care of patients after their operations.

10. Emergency Medical Technicians are those who come when you dial 911.  They perform basic life support skills, such as restoring breathing, controlling blood loss, and treating shock victims.

11. Certified Nurse-Midwives are registered nurses with more training that allows them to care for mothers-to-be, deliver babies, and take care of both mother and baby afterwards.

12. Genetic Counselors are people who provide family members with information about the make up of their bodies body such as eye color, hair color, or family-related illnesses.

13. Public Health Program Specialists identify specific health problems in the community and come up with answers.

[See Appendix B for more information on these jobs]

Let me tell you about some of the health care jobs I know about:

D.   Why do you think it might be a good idea to have one of these jobs? What do they do for you?

1. Earn a living and support yourself and family.  Not only do you get to do cool things as a health care worker, but also you get paid for it.  When you grow up and have a family, paychecks are pretty important.
2. Have a job that is stable and secure and skills that are in high demand.  When you grow up, there are going to be alot of health care jobs for people to fill so you won't have trouble finding one for you.
3. Make a difference.  If you become a health care worker, you will be helping out other people as well as yourself:

a)    Taking care of people who need it.  Making somebody feel better will make you feel better.

b)    Providing health care to people who don't have it.  At the moment, many people in this country have no one to take care of them when they get sick.  Maybe you could be the one to help some of them out.

c)    Helping improve the standard of health care.  What this means is that by getting into health care and being good at it, you can make health overall better for patients.

Here's what I think is great about being a health care provider ...

E.  What do you have to do to get a health care job? 

You'll want to work as hard as you can in school and when you get to high school, take as many science and math courses as you can.  One thing you have to do is graduate from high school and get a high school diploma.

F. Did any of you like one of the health care careers I talked about?  What did you like about it? 

Well, I hope something I have said here today will at least make you think about it.  The truth is, we need you in health care.  If you decide to be an optician (do you remember what that is?), or a nurse-midwife or physical therapist, you will be helping alot of people, and at the same time, you will be helping yourself with the kind of career that will make people in your community look up to you.