As someone who watched this club start and flourish overtime, it is quite amazing at how fast it has grown and reached the student body. To a basic student, this club may seem quite simple, but the further it is looked into, the more the complexity shows. These might truly be our future medical professionals.
HOSA stands for Health Occupation Student Association. The club’s main objective is to give students who are interested in medicine, experience with these types of topics. It’s essentially a competition club with different events students need to prepare for, sort of like Science Olympiad or DECA. For starters, Briar Woods High School’s unique iteration of HOSA started in 2022.
This variation came upon due to complications with entering the actual competition. Since BWHS members could not participate in the actual competition, Madeeha Naqvi, junior and president of HOSA, held an in school competition for people interested. The variation of the club consists of hands-on medical experiences, such as dissections, exploration of career pathways, and even in school HOSA competitions.
However, due to a low number of people attending a few of the monthly meetings during the 2023 school year, the club decided to hand out a survey to further improve their club. Using that survey, they were able to make improvements, which not only added complexity to the club, but it also brought in many new members
“We went from inviting club members to not having enough space to fit everyone.” said Madeeha Naqvi, Junior and President of HOSA at BWHS.
The club established their calendar for the 2023-2024 school year. After a very low weight year, they have decided to kick up the pace by adding onto the events that they are going to do this year. Other than actual HOSA events, this club is going to partake in hands-on activities, as well as career exploration. With these new ideas in place, HOSA has gained many new members, and are looking forward to an eventful rest of the school year!
With the new improvements, new members, and a unique mutation of the club, it makes people wonder, what have they accomplished so far during this school year, and what do they have planned for the future?
By the end of January, HOSA was able to hold a dissection event for the members of the club. 30 people attended, which is a great improvement from last year. Also, the fact that 30 people were able to attend and even participate, is quite impressive for an event that takes lots of preparation and medical advice. They were dissecting cow eyes with the assistance from the five officers, and the club sponsor, Mrs. Sabota, a chemistry teacher. Events like these are crucial for rising medical students because they are exposed to actual procedures they’ll do in a research or STEM atmosphere. For the future, they plan on doing more dissections and even a few fundraisers.
“We’ll be looking forward to more dissections after our successful cow eye one,” said Maysoon Khan, Junior and Outreach Officer for HOSA at BWHS.
Although they have stuck to a variation of this club due to the complications, they will be preparing for the regional competition, which is taking place next year, so they don’t fall behind. Last year, the two events held during the in-school competition were the biomedical debate and the medical terminology competitions. They will be doing the same this year.
Future plans aside, this club is such an important piece of the BWHS community. With so many students interested in the medical field, and no other clubs related to that topic, it really displays a field of prominence among this group of students. Many people struggle with understanding what they want to pursue in the future, but this club can really help a student figure it out. Not only does it help, but it showcases what the particular field might look like, which is definitely important.
“HOSA impacted me in the sense that it really helped me solidify the fact that medicine is truly something that I am interested in.” said Arnav Surapaneni, Sophomore and Vice President of HOSA at BWHS.
As expressed, this club is the perfect addition to the BWHS science community. Not only is it reserved as the only well functioning medical club, but it has also positively impacted many of the BWHS students. Also, it has showcased its well roundedness by listening to its members and making the changes it needed, and in return, it showed progress and growth. Lastly, kudos to the 5 officers, Madeeha Naqvi, Arnav Surapaneni, Maysoon Khan, Preetha Harikshanan, and Melanie Acevedo, for transforming this club and providing it for the future medical professionals at BWHS.
