BY DAWSON HUNT STAFFWRITER
The HOSA State Competition winners are Mackenzie Chambers first in Health Career Photography, Ruby Purgason third in Researched Persuasive Writing/ Speaking, Maci Taylor 3rd in Healthy Lifestyle, Alexis Williams third in Clinical Nursing, and Lydia Ripley fourth in Sports Medicine.
Sherry Skeen, HOSA Sponsor, stated, “I believe that these students worked extremely hard to go on to International Level by placing at State level. Each student has earned this position and should be extremely proud of their position. The advisors have been extremely proud of each HOSA member for joining and competing during times of this pandemic when everything is held virtually and most of the fun activities such as traveling in person etc has been taken away but regardless West High Students still wanted to do HOSA.”
In Health Career Photography you have to go out into the community and take pictures of three Healthcare Professionals working on patients or doing some aspect of their job, you must get permission from everyone involved and have all the correct paperwork for them to sign. You then have to write about that Profession and write about what they were doing in the picture. Then at the end you place everything in a portfolio and submit to an online system. Oh but you have to do one more thing and that is to develop a speech about the pictures you had taken and make sure it didn’t go over the allotted time.
Researched Persuasive Writing and Speaking provides HOSA members with the opportunity to gain knowledge and skills required for researching a health issue, preparing written documentation supporting a thesis, and presenting information orally. This competitive event requires competitors to develop a speech and written paper, either for or against, the provided annual health topic. This years topic was “Technology Use: Does it make us more or less connected”. The competitor has four minutes to present speech. They were also required to submit their Writing in a portfolio in an online system and do a speech virtually via zoom for state.
Healthy Lifestyle provides HOSA members with the opportunity to gain knowledge and skills required to understand healthy living and the impact on health throughout the life span. This competitive event consists of two rounds. Round One is a written, multiple choice test and the top scoring competitors advance to Round Two for a judge interview. In addition, each competitor will focus on one personal healthy lifestyle goal and document his or her efforts in a personalized portfolio. This event aims to inspire members to learn more about health literacy topics and to develop healthy habits for a lifetime. Our competitor focused on exercise and how tennis helps maintain cardiovascular health. She began her quest in September and have been working on it every since.
Clinical Nursing provides members with the opportunity to gain knowledge and skills required in the nursing field. This competitive event consists of two rounds. Round One is a written, multiple choice test and top scoring competitors advance to Round Two for the skills assessment. “This event aims to inspire members to use critical thinking skills and be equipped with insight to treat patients in a clinical setting.” The skills the competitor needed to know are how to; Administer Medication Intramuscular, Administer Medication Subcutaneous, Administer Medication Intradermal, Inserting a Nasogastric Tube, Urethral Catheterization – Straight, Performing a Sterile Wound Irrigation, Postmortem Care of the Body and, Assisting the Patient with Postoperative Ex. Not only did they need to learn to do this in a short period of time they must also learn how to chart each correctly in nurses notes and learn medical math. A scenario is presented and any number of these skills are given for the competitor to perform. I know this competitor plans on pursuing a career in Nursing and by doing this one competition through HOSA she will have already been introduced to those skills.
Sports Medicine provides members with the opportunity to gain knowledge and skills required for patient care in a sports medical setting. This competitive event consists of two rounds also with Round One being a written, multiple choice test and the top scoring competitors advance to Round Two for the skills assessment. This event aims to inspire members to be learn more about injury prevention, therapeutic intervention and immediate care. The Skills the competitor needed to know are Anatomical Landmark Identification, Joint Action and Maximum Range of Motion Identification, Taping / Wrapping of the Ankle, Achilles Tendon, Shoulder Spica, and Wrist / Hand. The competitor is given a scenario and within that scenario, they can have any number of these skills to perform