NEWS

The Association of Military Surgeons of the United States invited Virginia HOSA members to participate in their annual conference on November 30, 2016 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Washington, DC. 

As a Future Health Professional, you’re no doubt aware of the importance of networking. Health careers can often seem like a small community; in even a large city you’ll find that you run into the same people over and over again. So getting to know key people and maintaining strong relationships with those who are in a position to help you can be incredibly rewarding. As a student, though, you may think that networking is the domain of current health professionals alone. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

The 2016-2017 Goodheart-Willcox Outstanding Service Awards recognize local HOSA chapter advisors, one from each of the three HOSA regions who have made outstanding contributions of local, regional, state and national significance to the promotion, development, and progress of HOSA–Future Health Professionals. The award sponsor, one of HOSA’s loyal partners, Goodheart-Willcox Publisher strongly believes in the HOSA mission and is honored to sponsor these awards for HOSA advisors whose contributions serve to educate today’s youth to be tomorr

The Joint Medical Chair (JMC) and Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense/Health Affairs (OASD/HA) hosted the 7th Interagency Health Leaders Roundtable on November 15 -16, 2016, at the National Defense University (NDU), Fort McNair, Washington D.C., with three HOSA alumni members and two national officers in attendance. The members representing HOSA were: 

HOSA members and chapters are invited to take part in the 2016 Verizon Innovative Learning App Challenge. The app challenge is a free, STEM-based online competition for students in grades 6th through 12th.  Led by a teacher or mentor, teams work together to solve a problem in their school or community by creating a mobile app concept to provide a solution.

As promised, here is part two of my four-part series on applying to medical school. In the first installment, I discussed crunching the raw numbers to find schools where you’ll be academically competitive, and we also covered some in-state/out-of-state stuff. Now, I’d like to talk about the next step, which is much more holistic. Admittedly, this part of the selection process cannot be complete until you’ve interviewed (which will be covered in part four of this series), but it is essential to narrow your list as much as possible before applying so as to save money.

Across the country, many lives in the communities we serve are being touched by the opioid abuse epidemic. One in four teens have misused or abused prescription drugs once in their lifetime, with most getting them from a family’s medicine cabinet. The problem is a complex one, with many causes and challenges, but CVS Health and HOSA are working hard to address the effects of prescription drug abuse and prevent it from affecting more lives. 

HOSA-Future Health Professionals was honored to have Surgeon General Vivak Murthy with us at HOSA's 2016 International Leadership Conference and we are pleased to join his Turn the Tide Rx movement against the opioid epidemic.  Every day, more than 75 people in our country die from a prescription drug or heroin overdose. In 2013, nearly 249 million prescriptions were written for opioids – enough for every adult in America to have a bottle of pills.

The 2016 Public Health Leadership Seminar participants have been writting about their experiences on the PHLS Blog that can be found here - 2016 PHLS/HOSA Blog
 
The week-long seminar is hosted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) with support from the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG) and the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (USPHS).