Pre-Medical Club

Three students stand behind a table in a school gymnasium, two of them holding up black T-shirts lettered NEW YORK HOSA. Behind them a hand-lettered tri-fold display board reads PRE MED and, below that, HOSA, with a blue and a purple awareness ribbon and small photographs pinned around it. Other clubs' tables are set up on either side. — Our table at the activities fair.

HOSA – Future Health Professionals is a student organisation for people heading into the health professions, with chapters in secondary schools and colleges across the United States; it is the name on the shirts and on the board in this photograph.

Opportunities

Shadowing is following a clinician through part of an ordinary working day and watching, without taking part. A volunteering placement is unpaid work alongside the staff of a hospital, a clinic or a charity, with no clinical duties. A health-professions conference is a day or more of competitive events, workshops and speakers for students from many schools. Which of these are open, and when, is kept on one list.

The list of opportunities

Three students in dark business suits stand together on a stage, each wearing a conference lanyard hung with enamel pins and badges. Behind them a large screen reads HOSA - Future Health Professionals, Powered by People, against a purple-lit curtain. — Members at a student health-professionals conference.

Three students stand side by side in a school corridor in front of a red first-aid cabinet and blue lockers. Two of them hold up printed flyers announcing a club session run with a volunteering organisation; the third stands with her hands clasped, wearing a lanyard. — With the flyers for a volunteering session.

A science classroom packed with students at a club meeting. Around forty sit at black-topped lab benches or stand along the back wall, most facing right towards an adult in a pale checked shirt who is speaking with her hands raised. A small flag and a wall clock hang above. — A meeting, in the science room.

Three students sit along a black lab bench, smiling and holding up hand-drawn cards - one blue, one pink, one pale blue. Sheets of coloured paper, markers and scissors are spread across the bench in front of them, and more students work at benches behind. — Making cards at a lab bench.

Two students sit at a black lab bench holding open hand-made cards towards the camera. One card is green with drawn strawberries and the words you are BERRY great; the other is pale blue with a drawn bear and the words you are beary awesome. Felt-tip pens are scattered on the bench in front of them. — Two members with the cards they made.