The Ascension Foundation and Ascension’s Community Impact team recently hosted an educational event to expose middle schoolers in New Orleans to careers in medicine and science.
The #GOALS (Go Out And Love Science) event included interactive activities related to healthcare to encourage more than 450 students from seven schools across New Orleans to think about becoming healthcare professionals.
“Today is a seed being planted with our middle school students – sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders – that we want to go out and love science. It is so important that they feel and know that they have a place within healthcare because we need them,” Stacy Garrett-Ray, MD, MPH, MBA, Senior Vice President and Chief Community Impact Officer, Ascension, told WGNO. The event at Dillard University, a private, historically black university in New Orleans, was also supported by DePaul Community Health Centers, Ascension’s community health ministries serving the New Orleans area. It followed the first #GOALS event held late last year at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.
“We’re excited to have this early introduction with these kids and have them get prepared and in the mindset to really go into the science fields,” Michael Griffin, CEO of DePaul Community Health Centers, told WGNO.
