Off the Field: Health Care Group Finds Success at State

Eleven Republic High School students competed at the Missouri HOSA State Leadership Conference this spring, and two of them came home with top-five finishes. For senior Ava Lewis and sophomore Gabi Hillygus, the results capped a year of preparation — and for Lewis, they marked the payoff of work that started long before the competition season.

HOSA — formerly known as Health Occupations Students of America — is a global student-led organization focused on healthcare careers. Republic didn’t have a chapter until last year.

“At Republic, we have a lot of big clubs for people who are interested in business, teaching, agriculture, and more, but until last year, we didn’t have one for people interested in the medical field,” Lewis said. A group of seniors heard about HOSA and approached faculty sponsor Mr. Jeff Strider about starting a chapter, and they recruited Lewis, who had been taking every medical-related course she could find.

The chapter started small, with about 10 students at a typical meeting. But that has changed this year, Lewis said. “This set up a strong foundation to get the word out, and we now have 30–40 students at every meeting this year.”

Lewis serves as chapter president. “Being president this year has been such an amazing opportunity and has taught me so much about leadership and the medical field,” she said. “This club is something I am intensely passionate about, not only because I plan on going into the medical field myself, but also because there are so many people who know they want to work in healthcare but have no idea of all of the options out there.”

HOSA offers nearly 100 event categories across six divisions, including health profession events, teamwork events, emergency preparedness, and academic testing. The path to state begins with a proctored test at the high school level; the top 10 scorers in Missouri then advance to the State Leadership Conference in Rolla, where competitors complete a second round that can involve a skills demonstration, a presentation, or another test. A top-three finish earns a spot at the International Leadership Conference.

Lewis competed in the Occupational Therapy health profession event. She was among Missouri’s top 10 scorers from the preliminary round, then advanced to a skills showcase at state. She was given a patient scenario — an 83-year-old male stroke patient with limited movement on his right side — and had to teach the patient how to put on a shirt using one hand, in front of a judge.

“What I enjoyed most about this was having the opportunity to learn real skills I will be learning in my future career,” Lewis said. “It was such a fun experience overall, and I learned so much more about occupational therapy than I knew before.”

She placed third and earned a berth in the International Leadership Conference, held this summer in Indianapolis.

Hillygus competed in the Patient Care Technician event, which she also entered as a freshman last year when she qualified for nationals. This year, the event’s skills portion included two procedures: urinary catheter care and discontinuing a peripheral IV.

Preparing for the multiple-choice preliminary round meant studying clinical training manuals and sample test questions from the HOSA website. For the skills portion, she watched training videos on each procedure and worked with science teacher Mrs. Tesa Farran, who let her practice on a training arm after school once a week.

Hillygus’s top-five finish was just short of qualifying her for nationals.

The International Leadership Conference is scheduled for June 17–20 in Indianapolis.