Western Regional Community Consortium Winter Update

Spring 2025 Health Career Pipeline Programming

The Western Regional Community Consortium (WRCC) just completed week five of the nine-week West Michigan Health Career Pathways Program (HCPP) program in Grand Rapids.  Medical students from MSU recently presented information about infectious diseases and careers associated with infectious diseases to participants. During the activity, students were divided into groups called “Infectious Disease Detectives,” sharing unknown health issues. During this activity, students were given unknown disease symptoms as case studies so that they could research and diagnose possible diseases. With the guidance of their undergraduate mentors, six of eight groups correctly diagnosed the problem.  

The session lasted 90 minutes and received a 100% satisfaction rate, with many positive student participant comments. This educational session is one of three held at the Michigan State University College of Health Services Secchia Building in Grand Rapids.  The students received dinner, face-to-face mentor time and an interactive Health Careers Pipeline Program session. Programming runs until March 17th and will include one more face-to-face for all program participants. Thank you to the staff at Michigan State University, College of Human Services, for all their support and assistance with organizing the event spaces.  The program is supported through a collaboration with MSU College of Human Services, Corewell Health, WMU College of Human Medicine and Western Michigan University College of Human Services. 

Hospital Careers Education Day   

New events are being developed for high school students in April 2025! Students attending Kalamazoo Central and Loy Norrix High Schools in Kalamazoo, and students attending East Kentwood High School and Kellogsville High School will each receive a day of hospital health career exploration. The collaboration between WRCC and Ascension Borgess Education Center will welcome students to learn about various careers in the hospital, what a day in that career is like, the educational path to obtain the career, where the career can be housed and the potential income for the career would be. Staff from Ascension and other supporting organizations in the area will be assisting on the day of education and health careers exploration.   

This event is organized by Gary Murrell, Health Education Specialist, for Ascension Borgess Education Center and, Jayme Martin, Program Manager for Western Regional Community Consortium and WMU Pre-College Programs.