News & Stories

This summer, 22 Camden high school students had a chance to work and learn about health care professions as part of Cooper University Hospital’s Summer Youth Employment and Mentorship Program.

During the six-week program, which ran from July 8 through August 16, students worked 20 hours per week in various departments at Cooper. Students were paired with departments based on their career interest and had the opportunity to interact with clinical staff, including doctors, nurses and technicians, and administrative staff from departments such as finance, information technology, marketing and public relations, and human resources.

“Our goal is to offer students valuable work experience that opens their eyes to the multitude of career opportunities in healthcare,” explained Susan Bass Levin, President and CEO of The Cooper Foundation.

Throughout the program, organized by The Cooper Foundation and the Human Resources department at Cooper, students had a chance to hear from Cooper employees from both clinical and administrative positions during four-panel series. The panel discussions were geared toward providing participants with a better understanding of potential career paths.

Dashana Trent, who graduated from The Creative Arts Morgan Village Academy in Camden in June, participated in the summer program to learn about pediatrics, an area she had been interested in since she was a child. This summer, she worked in the Department of Pediatrics at Cooper, but discovered a new career interest – disaster medicine – while listening to Dr. Rick Hong, Head, Division of Emergency Medical Services and Disaster Medicine, talk during one of the panel discussions.

“I like how the field is fast paced and you are helping people,” Dashana explained. “By touring the hospital and attending the panel discussions, I learned about the different jobs in the hospital and what people had to do to get there.”

Click here to view the photo gallery of the panel discussions.