Health science competition: Cherokee County students sweep 14 top awards statewide

Sarah Mills | GlobalBeat

Woodstock High grabbed first place overall as 27 Cherokee County students medaled at Georgia’s HOSA Future Health Professionals state leadership conference last week.

The April 22-24 contest at the World Congress Center drew 2,400 competitors from 140 schools, making it the largest health science meet in state history.

The wins move Cherokee County closer to a decade-long goal of placing every high-schooler in at least one career-training pathway. Health science is the district’s fastest-growing program, swelling from 340 students in 2019 to 1,100 this year.

“I’m still shocked,” said Woodstock junior Ananya Patel, 17, who won the veterinary science event with a perfect clinical-skills score. “I practiced drawing blood on a dummy dog every lunch period since January.”

Creekview High collected the most hardware with 6 medals, including sophomore twins Arjun and Aarav Shah who swept the epidemiology team category by tracing a mock salmonella outbreak to a fictional food truck. Etowah High added 4 medals, River Ridge 3 and Cherokee 1.

District career-tech director Lisa Hardesty said the haul tops last year’s 9 medals. “These kids aren’t just memorizing flash cards. They’re running EKGs, mixing IV bags and diagnosing patients while judges stare over their shoulders,” she told reporters after Thursday’s victory rally at the Canton civic center.

The competition tested 42 real-world scenarios. Students had 10 minutes to intubate a medical manikin, interpret lab results or calm a crying child before a mock MRI. Points vanished for any hand not sanitized, any eye-contact missed.

Woodstock’s team spent $3,700 of district grant money on disposable suturing kits and retired ambulance stretchers to build a pop-up ER in an old weight room. Teacher Kelsey Brooks said they rehearsed trauma stations until 6 p.m. three nights a week. “We treated it like varsity football,” she added.

Creekview senior Camila Rodriguez, 18, credited bilingual study guides she wrote for classmates. “Half our team speaks Spanish at home. I translated 200 pages of pharmacology notes so their parents could quiz them,” Rodriguez said. She placed second in medical spelling after nailing “pheochromocytoma” on the final round.

The victories vault all 27 medalists straight to the HOSA international championship in Houston June 24-29, where they will face 12,000 rivals from 54 countries. Cherokee County schools will share a $14,000 travel stipend raised by local hospital partners Northside Cherokee and Emory Saint Joseph’s.

State HOSA director Dr. Karen Fox said Georgia’s $2 billion film tax credit has lured so many productions that on-set medics now recruit high-schoolers for summer jobs. “Last year two Fulton County kids worked as production EMTs on a Marvel movie,” Fox noted. “Cherokee could be next.”

Cherokee County isn’t resting. The board voted Tuesday to add a second health-science lab at Sequoyah High, complete with a $90,000 patient simulator that bleeps, gives birth and flat-lines on command. Construction starts in July.

Parents see paychecks, not just plaques. The Georgia Department of Labor projects 18 percent growth for licensed practical nurses and 30 percent for medical assistants by 2030. Starting wages hover between $22 and $28 an hour, triple the county’s teen average.

Background

HOSA began in 1976 at a Texas health-occupations meeting with 384 students and has mushroomed into a 260,000-member pipeline for hospitals facing chronic staffing shortages. Georgia chartered its first chapter in 1978 and now enrolls 21,000 members across 180 schools, second only to California.

The Cherokee County School District launched career-pathway courses in 2010 with federal Perkins grants aimed at shrinking the dropout rate. Health science quickly overtook automotive and culinary tracks as baby-boomer retirements opened medical jobs. The district partners with Chattahoochee Technical College so students can graduate with both a diploma and certified nursing assistant license.

What’s Next

The 27 qualifiers must raise another $1,200 each for Houston hotels by May 15. If they place in the top three internationally, they become eligible for $1 million in scholarships from the University of Texas Health Science Center and Baylor College of Medicine.