Central Louisiana Area Health Education Center (Central Louisiana AHEC) was recently awarded the 2012 AHEC Center Award for Excellence in Health Careers Student Recruitment at the bi-annual National Area Health Education Organization (NAO) Conference hosted in San Antonio, Texas.

CLAHEC is a non-profit, community-based agency dedicated to improving healthcare in Louisiana and addressing the problem of healthcare professional shortages in our state.

A primary goal of CLAHEC is to identify local needs and develop programs that will encourage young people to consider a career in healthcare and to practice in rural and underserved communities where their services are urgently needed.

Nan Ewing, Program Coordinator, states that “the ‘Day with the Doctors’ program is a unique experience for high school students who express an interest in medicine to learn about medical school and develop ideas for their own future careers through hands-on experiences, observation and interaction with current medical students. "We are extremely honored to have received such a prestigious award at the National level for one of our most competitive high school programs,” Ewing said.

High school juniors and seniors living in CLAHEC’s 17-parish region are given information through power point presentations, pre program press releases and the CLAHEC website about the upcoming programs and application process. This unique program is a one-day interactive experience that provides students who are interested in the medical field or a health career with an opportunity to observe a day’s activities on a medical school campus and to job shadow different medical professionals.

Qualifying students travel via coach bus to LSU Health Shreveport, LSU Health New Orleans or Tulane School of Medicine (program site is dependent on parish of residency).

Students get to tour different departments throughout the medical school and hospital, such as the anatomy lab, emergency center, radiology center and the human simulation lab. Students are also given the opportunity to learn and practice listening to breathing and heart sounds, taking blood pressure and basic life support practices through one-on-one interaction with medical students and physicians.

They learn first-hand about human gross organs and are able to differentiate between healthy and diseased organs during an anatomy session in the core anatomy lab. Students are also given information concerning admissions and requirements for medical school.

“A Day with the Doctors” is currently being offered at all three medical schools in Louisiana: LSU Health Shreveport, LSU Health New Orleans and Tulane School of Medicine. The “Day with the Doctors” program was formed in 1999 to address the issue of healthcare professional shortages in the state. Currently, only 569 (12.8 percent) of Louisiana’s 4,443 licensed physicians practice in rural areas.

Since the first program, CLAHEC has had 1,119 participants who have completed the program. Of those, 777 responded to the program's tracking efforts.

Today, 197 of the 777 tracking responders are currently in medical school and 14 are currently in a residency program and will be practicing physicians in Louisiana.

Of the 777 tracking respondents, 547 are currently enrolled in a healthcare program or are practicing health care professionals.

For more information on the next Day with Doctors or other programs offered by CLAHEC, call (225) 757-9845. You can also obtain information by visiting www.clahec.org.