Students Get Career Boost During Pre-Health Day

Recently, Pre-Health day brought together the NSU and the community to provide real-world career advising to undergraduate students interested in health-related careers. Career Development (Emilio Lorenzo) and the NSU’s Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography Professor Emily Schmitt Lavin, Ph.D., collaborated to present the annual Pre-Health Day along with colleagues from the Colleges of Dental Medicine, Pharmacy, Optometry, Health Sciences, the Dr. Kiran C. Patel Colleges of Allopathic and Osteopathic Medicine, The Tutoring and Testing Center, and Undergraduate Academic Advising. During the program undergraduate students were able to participate in mock interviews with professional (many of whom were NSU alumni). Students were able able to learn about a variety of graduate opportunities in health-related studies including the Masters in Biological Sciences Program, along with the Master of Public Health and Physician Assistant programs. Students also learned about medical scribe opportunities from representatives from ScribeAmerica. A group of medical students from the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine led by NSU Alum, Romany Harkas (B.S. 2018) assisted with the mock interviews.

Participants were welcomed by Richard Dodge, Dean of the Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography (HCNSO), followed by presentations by professionals in the health care field, many of whom were alumni of the undergraduate biology program and various NSU graduate schools. These presentations included career advice from Nergess Taheri, D.O. (HCNSO Class of 2011; MSBI Class of 2017; D.O. Class of 2017), Ahmed Sirage (HCNSO Class of 2009; NSU DMD Class of 2015); Nicholas Carris, pharmacist (HCNSO Class of 2008), Adriana Strimbu, podiatrist, Debra Stern, Physical Therapist, Faculty NSU Physical Therapy Department, Andre Kerr, Physician Assistant (HCNSO Class of 2010), Nicole Cook, faculty member (Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine), Samantha Krueger (HCNSO Class of 2017, NSU College of Optometry Student, Class of 2020), Tambi Braun, Speech Language Pathologist and NSU Faculty at the Dr. Pallavi Patel College of Health Care Sciences and Melissa Boguslawski, NSU Faculty at the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine.

The full list of presenters and their abstracts are available at: http://nsuworks.nova.edu/prehealth-day/.  More information is available about various alumni of the Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography Biology Major at the website: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cnso_alumni/ New alumni are also encouraged to join by selecting the submit bio option on the right hand side of the page.

Pre-health day provides a great opportunity for students to network with professionals and learn skills to make them better candidates for graduate school. For more information about this event, contact Mr. Emilio Lorenzo el541@nova.edu, Associate Director of Employer Relations, Career Development.