[Music] let me of course first of all acknowledge the head of school Dr Paul Neil hello hello and the superintendent
of Boston Public Schools Mary skiffer morning morning uh we're very proud to have the superintendent with us today she's a champion for Career Technical education you know a lot about it we won't put you on the spot and ask you to say a whole lot of things about it but super we're
very honored to be we have an illustrious panel for you students this is the first day of our career exploration initiative this spring I'm Shayla Stewart I'm with the career Champions Network we're a partner group that supports this school very deeply
and one of my colle Dr Barry blone where are you he's probably out in the H chat c Champions has been working hard with your program advisory boards each of your programs has special professionals and experts and they've gone to B to
bring together this event and events tomorrow and the next day of the other programs on our panel very illustrious group some of whom have stepped up very last minute we have three doctors from Beth Israel Deacon's Medical Center and I'm going to just say their names I'm
going to let them chat introduce themselves shortly Dr DJ Flynn Dr danieleski and Dr tasnim Amed thank you thank you Beth Israel for joining us and I want to thank Lyn Courtney she's the chair of the program advisory Bo board
for your medical assisting program medical assisting students uh Health assisting students nice dental assistance nice all right over here to the other side we have Jo Fergus she's a member of
the mass nursing Nurses Association so she's a union leader and she was a former BNA and nurse from M then we have Steph personal care of tant you know a lot about what's going on out there all
of these people do leader with Lev 1199 proud Union member with her shirt on and then Tyrone Reese fourth year student at tough School of Dental Medicine active in student organizations knowledgeable about global Health initiatives and you can speak the talk
of the social determinance of Health we can't go deep on that today we're going have another conversation all right so I'm going to kick off this panel we're going to keep a tight timeline one of the things we want to accomplish today is questions from you this is an event
for all of you this is meant to help you see what's going on in the healthcare industry how you fit in it how your your work here today and tomorrow and the rest of your Madison Park career prepare you for the wonderful opportunities that
are in this field and I can speak yes we'd love to would you come up and say a word sure thank you thank you so first of all I just want to say hi to all of the students um this is such a unque opportunity for you right this is
what Madison's about it is our Career Tech High School and the idea that today you have these panelists who are professionals who have dedicated their life in some aspect to the health careers that's a unique opportunity other high school students are getting in that same way um our mayor is going
to be coming later on but I just want you to know that she's a champion for Madison Park you know she's a mayor that's investing here she's investing in the programming and eventually in the building um this is a school that matters to the city and to BPS and the
fact you're here and as I spoke to some of you earlier you chose to be here you said I want to do a career and today as you're part of your exploration as it kicks off you're learning what you might want to do for those of you that are 11th graders or 12th graders you're
already chosen you know health is it and we need you in this city we need you in you know to be able to take care of everybody but for those that are ninth graders who are kind of doing the exploration and determining what you want to do today's a really important day because you're going to hear what's
possible so thank you to all of you for coming um you're really I mean taking it out of your busy days your doctors your nurses your personal assistants you know your dental dental uh professionals and so you know they're here to help you so I can't wait to hear your questions and
I know they can't wait to hear your questions thank you to Shayla and to CCN because you've been such good partners with us over the many many years thank you this join us for you want to roll want us to roll he knows you guys
he's seen you a lot all right so we will get started thank you thank you so we're going to do a quick round just to find a tiny bit I'm going to ask each of you just to tell us a little bit about your current job I wish we could hear your
history don't have right here right so I'm DJ Flynn I am uh I graduated medical school in 2019 and was in Internal Medicine learning how to be a PCP and a hospitalist for years right now I'm fining up my training to be a gastroenterologist which is someone who
treats GI diseases does colonoscopies andies thank you Dr dren hi guys um I'm currently in residency in Internal Medicine um such as like a DJ and I'm hoping to go into gastroenterology afterwards and specialize on that too um
I'm also a writer and I've done a lot of medical journalism throughout medical school wonderful Dr Alki I'm Danielle alvy and I'm I finished my training quite a few years ago now and I see patients in the hospital when patients are very sick I'm
a geriatrician who specializes in older patients and when I also take care of patients when they're really sick in the hospital so if someone's heart stops eeding I'm the first responded to restart their heart I also do a lot of uh Hospital work I work a lot of nights which is very acute and what I really
want you to leave with is no matter what is out there in the public media about being in healthcare it is a Place full of magic and when miracles happen every single day I think that's the most important thing I want to leave you
with thank you for that that's I interrupt real quick I'm sorry hi I'm Michelle R um we love everything you're saying but a lot of people can't hear you in the media can't hear you do you mind standing up I'm so sorry and speaking at the mic you can continue from where you guys are but just stand
at the mic and do you mind thank you I'm sorry up to the mic thank you for that information so good morning I'm um Joanne fargus I have um over 20 years I don't want to admit how many years I in profession of nursing So currently work at the Massachusetts Nurses Association
as a director of membership um and in that position I work with new graduating nurses and other healthare Professionals in their careers um I also also function as a professor of nursing at UMass Boston so I teach undergraduate nursing
um students who are beginning their careers and helping them understand how to function as nurses and transition into their practice I also F I also teach at Emanuel um College their graduate nursing students and so multiple levels of Nursing From Home
Care and in the hospital and I agree um we need you all we celebrate your interest in the profession and I look forward to seeing you all being part of um a great profession in health care so thank you for the invitation thank you so much may we
call hi I'm Stephanie Dennis I'm a personal care attendant um I've been a personal care attendant for about 11 years uh started out with a family member and uh what we do is very very important um and that something that you
guys can do now actually for friends and family members um that need your help um at home that are sick at home um I care for uh disabled and seniors um as well and um it's it's a very important role
um we're going to need a lot of uh Personal Care attendance um home health aids um that as such um because you know a lot of people are getting sicker and sicker and uh we're going to need your help um as far as caring for family
members and uh friends thank you thank you and Tyrone Reese please good day everyone my name is Tyrone Rees and I'm a fourth year Dental student at TS um I'm really excited to be here just to talk about Dentistry so
all the dental ESP people like I I really I really going to enjoy talking to y'all but as a fourth year Dental student um I graduated in May so I I understand the the grind of school but really in dentistry it's also a need for us everybody has teeth so we need more
people to come take there will always be a need in health care for that so um yeah I mean whether it's just a cleaning a filling an extraction a crown a bridge Dentures all those things we get to do in dental school so um I'm excited to talk to you
all and then tell you what's on the other side as well welcome thank you everybody we as you can see we have quite a remarkable group and so uh Michelle Wright who is my colleague today is going to help facilitate if you have a burning question you hear something interesting and you want to
ask call out your question raise your hand we'll recognize you because this is your day and your opportunity to learn so I'm going to just throw out a few questions to get the ball rolling we have a hard stop at 10:30 so we're going to go for the next 20 minutes talking
with these amazing people about their work but again you hear something you want to know your turn so I'm going to just I'm going to go right to the middle here just to break it up in terms of sequence I come back to you Joan you have quite a um professional
background in training the question for you and we see if comes to others is you all work with a lot of different staff members can you tell these students about how that the the occupations they are training for here right now which are uh particularly skillful certified
how do those positions um work for you in the field of healthare as you see it in other words we have CNAs we have dental assistant we have medical assistant can you speak to these jobs and how they relate to the larger picture and if you'll step back
up I guess I would frame that in sort of two circles I would say one um you all are necessary because you all are going to be serving the community that generally goes unseen um and serving members of the community who really need
people who know them and see them and understand them to Advocate and speak for them and I think in terms of the specific jobs there's no functioning in the Health Care System unless everybody in the team is skilled and everybody in the team is Mission driven um for the
service of the community and the patients that we are um charged and empowered to represent and advocate for so every single piece of the puzzle there's no one piece that is more important or more valuable the work that you all will do from compassion and the
work that you will do in your with your hands and your skill make the work that every other part of the team does function well and so no one group the nurses can't function without the CNAs the Physicians can't function without the nurses all of us need to be Mission
driven focused on the success and the best outcome for our patients and in advocating for the situations that people go back and live in so I would say the work that you're doing is valuable and necessary and the fact that you individually have chosen to do so is
important and necessary for the success and the health of our community so thank you thank you for that that's it's a big team and you're all in it and we're in it for you here as Educators here your teachers here are getting you ready to
do exactly what you just heard about in Jo uh dreski i' like to ask you to reflect a little bit if you can on the skills that people these what are the the fundamentals and I'm not necessarily just talking about the technical skills
for the occupation but big skill that's a great question thank you so much for having me when I think about the skills that you will need I think the most important skill actually well
one there are two that are tied one comes from within you which is is that belief in yourself and you just have to believe the sky is the limit I came from you know a family where we were almost homeless if my family didn't take me in
I never dreamed I would be a doctor and have the life I have today and you just have to believe that there are a lot of things out there that communicate this message that you're not good enough you don't belong here you don't deserve to be here but you can never listen to that
why because the noise star that you're climbing towards is so much bigger so much more beautiful than you can possibly imagine and it's worth everything you go through to get there I think that's the most number one skill is listen to that inner voice in yourself you've chosen to be here
something drew you to this moment and you already are chosen and do not let anyone take that out of your heart that's number one and then number two is just those eyes because you come from this world where you represent your community you have the superpower you
have that third eye that's going to notice things that's going to see things that other people don't see let that awaken what FR calls that conscious like why is it like this why is it like this why does this patient go back to this situation why did this patient show up
right here right now in this way and what is my response my reflection of that and my action how am I going to advocate for that patient those I think are the two most important things that belief in yourself that you know you're
chosen you're called to this moment and that can never change and the second thing is that third eye that conscious isation that what is going on here what is happening for this patient and my community and how do I make things better question was that
like did you know you want to become aor never in my life never in my life that choose to bector yes so you asked me how did I did I ever know I wanted to be a doctor was that one question and what was the second question like what pass you to
like be called doctor what the magic for me so the reason why I do what I do I love talking to patients that's the magic that is the magic when you talk to the patient you know we have this thing I brought this handheld ultrasound so you're talking to the patient and you can see inside their
body as to what's wrong and what's making them feel unwell and that helps you to really again I'm going to talk about all these people inspire me Paul Farmer and this accompaniment that you can reach into the lives of your patients and deliver something good and
that's that's that's incredible so I never I I I think I was sold when I shadowed someone and and I saw them talk to the patient and they put their hands on the patient that to me is the most exciting thing that you guys are doing that you're able to put your hands on
people and say I am with you from the time you meet them in the waiting room you're giving that message I am with you I see you I hear you and I am with you and then that just goes on through the rest of the encounter and you commit to journeying with that patient again to
reach into their lives and deliver something good so I had no idea I was going to be a doctor first I'll give you one quick story The only reason I was a doctor is because we were so poor my dad had to move in with a friend who had five cars in Georgia and that person happened to be a doctor so my dad said why don't you check out medicine that
guy has five cards he's doing pretty well that's no so don't do it if you want to get rich have five cars I don't have five cars but I do have an amazing life it's to the point where I tell all three of my kids they have full rain and whatever type of doctor they want to be we can pick it all there's all different
types you know it is just such an amazing and an amazing profession so I hope that answers your question goad what's your question how and you start how and okay I'll do one more because I think we should ask those questions so the thing is you're going to say I'm crazy but the sky is the limit as to how
you decide you want to do your career there's a lot of choice I think people at this stage are like oh my God I have to pass the exam but past that there's a lot of choice so I started in high school we all go to college for four years you can do an 8year program and then you go into residency for a couple more years and then you can do
fellowship and then you're think like oh oh my God all this school but guess what you're living your life as you go to school you travel you get married you have kids your life doesn't stop so don't worry about oh my God I'm going to be like in a wheelchair when I'm done it doesn't work you know you just keep
living your life so hopefully that helps to um explain um what what is said there I think that is actually someone looking for me try to [Music] okay ref some questions the a I'm going to ask you to them how it goes young
lady speak very loudly what are some benefits of your career oh um it's just so rewarding when you see that the person that you're taking care of is Happy um especially
like when I started out I worked for a family member and it was so reassuring that she had somebody caring for her that she trusted and is you know it's it's a rewarding feeling because the the
person um can feel comfortable uh with the person that that's caring for them um if it's if it's someone that that that they don't really get along with or don't care for you know they you know it's it's really tough for them because they're dealing with health issues on
top of uh you know someone they they can trust someone to take care of them and uh just a overall feeling of of feeling comfortable and and just feeling better um they can they could smile every day
they can they can uh enjoy um being at home getting cared for instead of being in a facility um and you know I think that's the most rewarding part of it is you know that they have someone that you know that cares for them as much as they
care for for the person that's taken care of them quick comment from you how did you get the skills that you have where did you get some training or or some some learning for yourself well I think I think a lot of it uh is you know
I'm I'm a parent as well so you know I I I took care of my son and and raised my son and you know the a lot of the skills that I use for that I use in my job um because I'm I'm caring for the person I'm taking care of their day-to-day uh
needs you know as far as you know getting them dressed and you know um what I like to do with my client is or consumer we call them um I like to um buy uh scented oils so I I when I when I
get them dressed and everything and I I put the oil on and I'm like hey you're going to smell good for the ladies you know the building or whatever so you know he he enjoys that and you know it I just make him smile you know and joke with him and and we talk about you know
things in life and and you know he it makes them feel comfortable um uh with the situation that they're in thank you appreciate um can I invite uh Dr Flynn up
sure question I would love to ask you cuz you you know you've got s in a doctor could you tell us a little bit about s of the medical breakthroughs the exciting medical Trends you see that these young people might be able to be a part of is there something uh particularly dynamic in the healthcare
field that you would like to draw to their attention there's a lot of there's a lot of different things that are coming down the pipeline and it's very and a very exciting time to be in medicine in general uh I was actually at a conference yesterday where we talked a lot about the use of artificial
intelligence and how that's helping not only with research which is what the conference was focused on but also dayto day and I think we're going to see the integration of a lot of that um uh in ways that we can make it safe for patients uh keep privacy in mind and
things like that so that's that's sort of been the thing that I'm uh thinking about a lot within gastro neurology I do a lot of procedural work um and that uh involves a large care team as well and there's like Technical Innovations and things like that that uh you know keep
uh coming to work very exciting as the field evolves um um but those are probably less exciting for today tell us about the the various positions you work with on your team what kind of staff are on your team yeah so um I work in a variety of different um uh environments
so I have some inpatient work uh meaning in the hospital outpatient work in clinics and then the procedure itself and on inpatient uh we can all speak to the fact that we work with nurses uh medical assistants uh pharmacists pharmacy tech
um who else who am I missing social workers nutritionists ultrasound tech CT Tech I could go on and on in the outpatient setting uh we work with a lot of medical assistants uh and CNAs and they are often the people who are closest to the patients and can help
alert us to anything that's uh going on or maybe subtle things that we can't pick up on sort of speaking to the third eye um and then in the procedural setting we have uh nursing we also have nursing assistance we have scope technicians because the equipment we work with needs upkeep and a lot of
Maintenance and they are the pros at that um just to name a few any questions for Dr Flynn Dr Flynn at what age should men go get a great question uh uh I don't think it applies to a lot
of people here uh what age should men go to get a colonos um so uh we just recently lowered the age to 45 although depending on uh factors such as race family history and your own personal history it might be even sooner than that so good thing to speak to your doctor about thank you of course bring
up tyone I'm watching our clock and we're going to um wrap up because you're going to get to ask questions of these fine folks that they're going to stay with us and we're going to move into our separate areas and continue the conversation so uh tyone can you tell us a little about your journey and how you
got to where you are oh of course I I'll just start by saying I've been in school since I was seven years years old so I've been in school for a long time um I think part of the journey to get where I am just took a lot of
determination um it takes a lot of willpower and a lot of consistency and persistency there's a lot of doors and opportunities for you but they don't always just jump in your lap you have to go out and get it you have to look at people like the the the doctors here and
you also have to look at the people who are in places where you want to be those opportun unities were not just handed to them so for me it really took me looking in the mirror and saying like hey I can't get to where I go where I want to go unless I put the work in so my journey was really every day putting the
work in understanding you can't get into dental school into medical school without getting the right grades so I had to realize years ago okay if I want to get here today I have to do this so it's just small steps every day that 1% getting better every day that gets you where you want to go so a lot of my
journey early in high high school and college I didn't have the best grade so I had to take extra years to go back and redo the work that I should have done the first time that I had to redo but it's all a part of my journey and it's uh honestly just thankful to God that he was able to open these doors for me uh
so just to keep it kind of brief I graduated high school and then I went off to college I did four years in college we really four and a half cuz I have to do an extra semester of college because I wanted to go into Dentistry I did not know I wanted to be a dentist early on I wanted to to be in business just something where I'm working with
people I found out about Dentistry because I know you can work with people it's a business aspect to it and you're also doing art as well so these are a lot of things that I like just to incorporate into one career and it has a great work life balance we'll talk about that behind behind the scenes
but and then after college I went I applied to dental school I applied twice and both times I got rejected because they looked at my grades they looked at the things that I didn't take care of on the early end so I went forward and did a m M program I went to Mississippi uh Mississippi College and did a one year's
master's program and after I got to that master's program I was like this is my last chance and I put my all into it when I put my all into it I had a 3.9 GPA coming out and tus was the only Dent school that accepted me so I I moved up to Boston here I am at TBS and now it's
it's just amazing being able to do things like this and really see cuz Dentistry opens up doors like this this isn't an opportunity that you would get if you're not doing something you're passionate about so honestly my journey has just been consistent persistency
every day every day consistent persistency pushing forward quick questions for Tyrone we got one more speaker we got to get her up here sign up for school and you got like rejected those two times like what made you want to keep going like why didn't
you just give up right then and there that's a good question so she yeah so she asked when I applied to school and I got rejected a couple times what what make me keep pushing what made me apply again um that's a great question you
know I can't I can't lie and say when I got rejected it didn't make me feel way like that day I was I was torn I was like you know what I may need to do something else but that lasted very very short I mean from the like literally maybe an hour what kept me pushing was
just the passion like I don't this is what I want to do like I I've been rejected before I played basketball I've missed a shot before that's not that's not going to keep me from shooting another shot if I'm open again you know it's it's really just understanding what it is you want to do and even if
somebody rejects you you have to have enough like faith and belief in yourself and your community around you the people who are pouring into you have good people around you and also pour into them and be honest with yourself I had to be honest with myself I can't say they they don't like me I got rejected I
had to look at myself like no my grades weren't good so then I had to take another another route to get my Graves good so then they had no reason but to [Applause] accept would you join us just briefly just last remarks for us we do have a
very significant visor I'm none of us are not noticing so we'd love to have you speak in just a minute and then we're going to break into smaller more informal but last thoughts for these young people about Direction I think for them they
they are wonderful careers right now and they could be done but just Reflections about career Direction and how to make choices we've heard that from a couple speakers but your words on that yeah I think the biggest thing you can do is look within your own communities and figure out what drives you what gives
you the passion because ultimately it's going to be a long and sometimes ardous road ahead and it's going to be really hard to keep going if you don't have that passion and that love for what you do and I know you'll find it because I going into medicine find
something that I love every single day about what I do with my patients you know I work at dimik which is a community clinic just St by here and that gives me so much joy just to get to know about the communities here get to know about my patient lives and so finding ways in which you can connect
with the people around you as you're going by as you're doing the hard work is going to really be the give you the energy to keep going even on those days when things are a little hard um so I think that's my biggest takeway is just make sure you love what you do and that you have a lot of passion that you have
a support network call on your friends and your family because this is not something that any of us did by ourselves right like we all had so much community support from everybody around us our mentors find those folks who will look after you and pull you ahead with
them um and that's I think really the the biggest um part of success in in in these fields that's [Applause] so honor to have you would you come up and a few
[Applause] words everyone morning morning so excited to be here um sorry I was a little late I had to feed the baby on the way out the door uh the new baby is four weeks old as of today so we're
getting through it I'm still wearing my like pregnancy clothes because I didn't get to change the the closet and all that and we're we're navigating all that comes with growing a family and you know sometimes you feel like you're not quite sure where you're supposed to be in the
world um at any given moment but you realize that you're in the right place that you need to be so I I really feel I needed to be here to hear some of the insights from this incredible group and to say thank you to you all who are doing the work caring for patients and
families in their sometimes their hardest moments or their most joyful moments uh in the most important moments of their lives and I want to say say thank you to you all because you are already doing the work and going to be the ones that future moms and dads and
families are leaning on um I'm I similar to some of the stories here never expected that I would be in Boston city council or mayor or doing anything like this I'm very shy actually
quite introverted and so uh my family I come from a family of um my parents are immigrants to this country and we were kind of told to just keep your head down and stay out of trouble my mom also especially was pretty skeptical and nervous about anything related to the medical system um given how she grew up
in uh Taiwan and so when she started to have a mental health crisis and then really start to struggle with mental illness it changed everyone's lives in my family and I went from thinking I was going to just have a job make some money
take care you know have my own family one day to realizing that I had to kind of set aside everything and take care of my mom because we didn't know what was going to happen one day after the other with her mental illness and my siblings still young at home so I went through a lot of nights in the emergency room with
her a lot of experiences just seeing what saved lives and what made it more stressful being in care situations sometimes with maybe where that third eye wasn't activated uh about different cultures or different languages and all that and then now growing my own family
uh you know have three kids now and it's been uh especially for this my latest daughter our our third child Mera um it was a lot of struggle a lot of heartbreak along the way to get to the point where we finally were able to
welcome her into the world and I just will never feel like I can ever repay the incredible medical staff the healthc care um leaders and workers made that possible I remember the first time I had to be in the hospital bed myself as part
of going through trying to think about having a baby after a lot of loss and challenge I was pretty triggered being because the last time I had been in some of those spaces was with my mom in really intense situations when she was having her Mental Health crisis and to
know that I was getting good care it wasn't enough up here it was actually some of the nurses and um staff who came in who finally made me feel I could be seen in here that made it possible for me to just kind of say okay this is
where I'm supposed to be so that's the difference that you're making and going to make every single day in the lives of people all across the city who you might not remember their name uh later on but they will always remember your faces because you will be the ones who made it
possible for them to have the lives that they wanted to have so most of all thank you so much this is an incredible Community to Mr Neil and all of the team here to miss Medina and Mr Watson and Miss Wright for coordinating these
experiences Boston has every opportunity in the world but we don't always do the best job of connecting it to our own people and our own students and our residents you all are showing what an impact it has when we do do that and so from these career exploration days to
all of the Investments that we're going to be making in the CTE program here at Madison in the year of community meetings around new facilities and buildings and the new building that you all will have as as we get into it um this is an investment not just in you
but in our entire city so superintendent and I are fighting every day to make sure that we're going as fast as possible we know that the impact that has U finally I want to give a shout out to two members of my team who represent and reflect uh what Madison means in the
community today so we have Evangel carvalo who is the director of our office of police accountability and [Applause] transparency class of 1999 class of 99 Cardinals um and Asha J who is our
Roxberry liaison class of class of 08 so anyway thank you for everything I'm so grateful for what you represent keep working hard keep shining your lights because there are so many people looking to you and ready to follow in your footsteps you thank you so much to
our panelist and leaders for here today it's a wonderful day folks so here's our next step and I'm going to ask Miss Medina and other staff members to help guide this we get to have some more time as and we won't keep people beyond our official time which is
officially 11: if anyone is hang around a little bit that would be okay we're going to ask you students to go back into your areas your three programs and we're going to ask our panelist to join you and I think the easiest Tyrone who's going to Dental on our other folks I'm going to um ask for a little bit of help
here I'm thinking that we might send uh personal care to to um medical assisant so is there our medical assisant teachers somewhere here medical assistant teacher health assistant health assistant yeah they should go to health assistant and then they should go
to medal all right so can teachers take these um come up or students um we have some students guide our panelists to their one student and then help the panelist go to your
classroom students Step Up group photo with the panel before we goou photo photo [Music]