Mentoring Teens Rewarding for Docs, Life-changing for Students

March 27, 2023, David Mitchell — The United States faces a projected shortfall of up to 48,000 primary care physicians by 2034. To help meet this need, more than a dozen AAFP constituent chapters have piloted partnerships with their states’ HOSA-Future Health Professionals chapters over the past two years as a way to expose students to family medicine.

AAFP News recently sat down with Jean Ghosn, M.D., of Richmond, Texas, and Texas AFP Chief Operating Officer Kathy McCarthy, C.A.E., to discuss how the Texas chapter works with HOSA to promote family medicine.

McCarthy: A number of states were initiating these relationships at the same time, and we all did different things. We really have just supported the competition at this point. We’ve talked about doing a virtual presentation, but that hasn’t happened yet. 

Our members did interviews that helped kids prepare for the competition. The actual competition happens during the workday, and it’s really hard for our members to cancel their clinics to go serve as judges, so our staff has gone instead.

He was really good at picking up the answers and writing it in a way that would be convincing to the judges. I had another student who did a combination of both, but communicated mostly through emails.

There are six objectives for the competition, and all six objectives are addressed in separate questions. Some of the students were interested in following up with me and asking clarifying questions, and I was happy to answer them through text or phone calls. They weren’t more than 15 to 20 minutes at a time.

AAFP News: Did the mentoring go beyond this? Do you expect these young people might come back and ask to shadow you?

Ghosn: Mentoring is an opportunity to forge an ongoing relationship of support and guidance for these students, and to follow their transition through high school and into higher learning. My goal is help introduce them to the beauty of family medicine. And I’m seeing that a lot of them are interested in that path.

AAFP News: What is the benefit for doctors or chapter staff who get involved?

Ghosn: There are so many benefits from mentoring HOSA students for everyone involved. It really reconnects my passion to family medicine, especially when we chat about the moment I decided to pursue this career and how it’s been so far. This honest reflection rekindles all the interests I have for this specialty. Mentoring students in HOSA really helps support the TAFP and AAFP efforts at early pathway engagement, and it encourages myself and other family physicians to act on the commitment we have to ensure the growth of medicine and the success of our future colleagues.

McCarthy: That’s what we’ve heard from other TAFP members as well — that rekindling of passion and the excitement. I went to a regional competition and the international competition. Seeing the excitement and interest from young people and the size of the meeting shocked me. We have seven HOSA regions in Texas, and I went to the one that covers Austin and San Antonio. There were 1,000 high school students there, all dressed in their professional attire for different competitions and things, but the excitement and their interest in health professions was really gratifying to see. It made me happy that we were dedicating time and effort to work with this organization.

AAFP News: The South Dakota AFP got a Family Medicine Philanthropic Consortium grant for its efforts with HOSA. Is TAFP pursuing grant funds for this?

McCarthy: We haven’t because we haven’t done much beyond the interviews. We did offer scholarships last year for the statewide winners, but our other expenses have been just time.

AAFP News: The Texas AFP has a bigger staff than some other chapters. Is this something a smaller chapter could do?

McCarthy: I think so because it was really easy. Dr. Ghosn is an alumnus of a TAFP leadership program. When we got the request for physicians to interview, I sent it out to that group of 80 or so and got all of my volunteers within a day. In small chapters, they have the same kind of relationships with their members, and it’s a 30- to 60-minute ask that physicians can fit into their schedules.

Some of the feedback we got was that just sending a blank piece of paper with the questions was not fulfilling for the physician. So, we are gently encouraging the high school students to do either phone or video interviews because with technology, this isn’t geographically limited. They don’t have to meet the student in person. It’s an easier ask for our members.

A small chapter, because they’re likely to have fewer requests in a smaller state, can do that interview part. HOSA has regional and state meetings, and it’s possible to do presentations. Maybe that’s something that we’ll expand into next year, getting some of our leaders to go out and do presentations. Texas is a big state, so travel could be an issue for our members. In a smaller state, if it’s just driving a couple of hours to get to a competition and do a presentation, it doesn’t seem unattainable.

AAFP News: What else would you want your peers to know about this opportunity?

Ghosn: I would sincerely encourage all of my colleagues to volunteer for this opportunity to mentor new young people who also have a passion for medicine. I felt touched by this experience — to hear the excitement of the students as we go through their questions together step by step and see them realize the breadth of career options we have in family medicine. I would tell my colleagues that it’s a rewarding 30 minutes of your time, and possibly life-changing for the students. Think of it almost like a free therapy session. You get to sit back, unwind, and talk about something completely different in our world than the slow EMR or quality metrics.

McCarthy: When I went to the international competition last year, they had a big opening celebration. One of the things I noticed was that there were no other specialty societies there. There were nursing organizations, the Army and EMS organizations, but family medicine was the only specialty that put in the effort to be there. That says something.

When I went to the regional competition, I said, “How can we help? How can our members help?” Part of what they need is shadowing opportunities. They really want to get into physician offices. That would be another thing, beyond just the interviews, if there are physicians who are willing to have high school students shadow them. That’s hard these days to have non-clinicians in practice because if you’re an employed physician, you may have restrictions.

AAFP News: So it might have to be a practice owner?

McCarthy: Yes, but some of these high school students have programs where they become pharmacy techs. They finish that certification while they’re in high school, so they’re getting HIPAA- and CLIA-certified. Some of them know how to draw blood. They have skills.

We had a local student who was the regional HOSA president come to our meeting last April and tell us about her experience. She had already trained as a medical assistant through her high school program, had been accepted into college and was planning to go to medical school. Our members asked her what she wanted to specialize in, and she said urology. When our member asked her why, she said that the first physician who took time to mentor her was a urologist. So, having one of our members spend 30 minutes with a student in an interview could make a difference. If you’re the first physician that’s taken time, not to fix their broken ankle, but to really talk to them about their career, that can have a huge impact.