LIFE MIRRORS HOSA

It was only two weeks after our Maryland Spring Leadership Conference that there were tainted strawberries in the U.S. Many of the schools in the country were affected by a Hepatitis A scare. Amazingly enough, our Creative Problem Solving Competition was on the very same topic! It was as if our students predicted some of the solutions utilized, prior to them occurring in real life!

Our "problem" was with a Hepatitis A outbreak from a person who worked at a local restaurant and then worked at a nursing home, infecting many at both the home and the community. In our case, the outbreak was confined to a regional area, which was different from the contaminated strawberries that were sent to schools all over the country. Some of our solutions were a bit more creative, but some were exactly what was done in the "real" world.

The students that took part in the competition closely followed the news reports of solutions that were taken by the U.S. government. They felt as if they could really have solved the nation's crisis. It made our students feel as if they could now be successful in more ways than we, as educators, could have ever convinced them.

It seems as if HOSA played yet another role in preparing future healthcare workers...in this case...Life mirrored HOSA!