It’s no secret that the health-care industry in Rhode Island is facing a labor crunch.
“If we could find 35 nurses we would hire them tomorrow,” said Robert A. Urciuoli, president of Roger Williams Medical Center.
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But the health-care industry’s labor problem extends beyond nursing. Pharmacists, X-ray technologists, physical therapists, billing coders and other positions are in short supply, according to the Hospital Association of Rhode Island.
A number of factors are to blame, but officials often cite the industry’s trouble in attracting young people to the field.
“Young people have so many other careers choices available to them,” said Edward J. Quinlan, president of HARI. “They need good, accurate information about what a career in the health profession really means.”
Now, students at a new high school in Providence will get that chance.
About 85 ninth-graders began taking classes last month at the new Health and Science Technology High School, housed temporarily in a building on Fountain Street.
Providence schools recently approved the design for a planned, three-story building on Thurbers Avenue, which the school will move into next fall.
The high school’s mission is to expose kids to the array of careers available in the health and science fields. Eventually, students might shadow an emergency medical technician for a day, earn college credit in a university science lab or intern at a hospital radiology department.
“We’ll build the curriculum around these real-world experiences,” said Bernard Lough, the school’s principal. “There are a plethora of health and science careers out there. Our kids just need to have their eyes opened to them.”
Many students show up on their first day dreaming of being doctors or nurses, Lough said. But organizers say the school will give them broad-based skills and experiences, exposing kids to a full menu of health and science jobs, from EMTs and clinical social workers to veterinarians and pharmacologists.
For now, students are taking a core curriculum, and officials admit that details of the school’s future programs are sketchy. But they say opportunities abound, mostly because there is strong support from some of the city’s most powerful institutions: six hospitals and four colleges eventually will make resources available to the school.
“It has the potential to give students an early taste of a broad range of health careers that they wouldn’t normally see until after college, while also benefiting an industry that is a real economic force in the state,” said Lou Fazzano, president of Health & Education Leadership for Providence (HELP).
HELP, a nonprofit partnership, includes Brown University, Butler Hospital, Johnson & Wales University, The Miriam Hospital, Providence College, Rhode Island Hospital, Rhode Island School of Design, Roger Williams Medical Center, St. Joseph Hospital and Women and Infants Hospital.
HELP has served as a “bridge” between those institutions and the school district. It hired a director this month to coordinate participation by the hospitals and universities, eventually facilitating things like guest lecturers, mentoring programs and site visits to hospitals and college campuses.
And there will be opportunities for “educator externships,” whereby the high school’s teachers might visit hospitals and medical schools, learning firsthand from health professionals and university professors, organizers said.
“The strength of the high school will be determined by how well we can integrate the hospitals and colleges,” said Hillary Salmons, vice president of HELP. “These institutions are full of such talented professionals. Our job is to tap into those resources.”
Plans for the school began about a year ago, when Urciuoli, chairman of HELP, approached Providence Schools Superintendent Diana Lam about a health-focused high school. The two now co-chair the school’s advisory committee, which is developing curriculum and programs.
While the high school won’t solve the state’s labor problem, health-sector officials say it is part of a long-term strategy to lure more students into Rhode Island’s largest industry.
“Any hands-on experience we can offer students should give them a sense of what careers they might be interested in,” Urciuoli said.
It’s a relatively new concept nationally, although HELP officials have borrowed ideas from a similar high school in New Haven, Conn. – founded in collaboration with the Yale-New Haven Medical Center – and a school associated with Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
But what will make the high school in Providence unique, officials say, are the possibilities created by the sheer number of hospitals and higher-education institutions that have committed to participate. Salmons, who visited the high school in New Haven, said officials there were impressed with how many hospitals and colleges wanted to be a part of the Providence school.
“They were blown away by the fact that we already have the senior leadership of so many institutions excited about this,” she said.
Parents are excited too, Lough said. The school’s attendance rate exceeds 95 percent and there already is a waiting list. School officials plan to take similar-sized freshman classes over the next three years while the school’s curriculum and programming are refined.
The new school mirrors other efforts in Rhode Island to develop sector-specific skills. The Rhode Island Technology Council last week announced a new, four-year high school in Newport geared toward high-technology careers.
