Avery Rosas

Members of Future Health Professionals gather and support the brand new club the day of club rush. Pictured from left to right: Casey Nguyen (12), Makayla Nunez (12), Vivian Dinh (12), Adrielle Dumandan (12), Gianna Spagnolo (12), Khalea Turingan (12)

Imagine a world class nurse being interviewed after saving so many lives. The nurse is asked about where they got their start and the answer to that question is the Future Health Professionals (FHP) club at their high school. 

FHP meets every first and third Thursday of the month in H108, Mrs. Puente’s class. The club hasn’t had their first meeting of the year, but it is set to take place on October 5.

Since this is the club’s first year, the possibilities for club meetings are endless.

The basic rundown of a meeting would be filled with talk of events offered and potential volunteer hours. Club President Casey Nguyen (12) also plans to offer workshops that members can potentially put on their resume to help them reach that future goal as a health professional. 

Nguyen wants to give plenty of opportunities to students that aren’t just restricted to nursing to help the club branch out throughout the medical field. This in return gives students a chance to experience everything and help them make the decision best for them.

“That would include optometry, dermatology, psychiatry, and all the other fields that students may be interested in,” Nguyen said. “I know that [other clubs] mainly focus on students who are interested in nursing and being a primary doctor, but in health there’s a really diverse range of majors and careers that people could get into.”

Because the subject students will later major in may be life changing, Nguyen and Vice President Makayla Nunez (12) found that it was hard trying to go through each medical major and job just to find out what they personally wanted to pursue.

“I’m a little confused on what I want to do,” Nunez said. “So I just want to help people who are in my shoes right now to kind of figure out what they want to do in their future.”

Nguyen found that while other clubs on Ayala’s campus were extremely helpful with getting lots of volunteer hours, more information on the subjects they were supposed to be learning about would have been equally helpful. 

FHP hopes to teach by giving information, these may include hands-on learning as well as presentations on various careers students may be interested in.

Students will get a chance to look at the struggles and benefits of multiple jobs in the health field that aren’t really spotlighted in any of the other clubs currently at Ayala. 

Throughout the year, FHP will offer a deeper look at what different medical jobs and majors can offer to them in the future and help them prepare for the big decision of what medical job to pursue in the future. With these struggles and benefits in mind, students may be able to make a better, more accurate decision of what they may be interested in, rather than if they only had a quick google search worth of knowledge to base their future major on.

Among others, Nunez and Nguyen both hope that their club will offer information to students and hopefully help create some comfort and solace in choosing their future career.

“There’s a really diverse range of majors and careers that people could get into so in our club, we’ll be discussing how to get into things like optometry, dermatology, many other health sciences that students on campus may be interested in,” Nguyen said. “So we’ll be helping them, you know, guiding [them] through that process of kind of learning, and learning what they might be doing in the future.”