With her background in physical therapy and seventeen years of teaching, Emerson High School welcomes Marlaina Pritchard. As both the Health Occupations Students of America’s club advisor and Health Sciences Career Technology and Education Center Teacher, she is preparing the next generation of health professionals.
“I specifically enjoy teaching Career Technology and Education Center classes, because I get to relate the content back to healthcare,” Pritchard said. “By sharing my experiences, I can help my students find their passion and path.”
Before becoming a Health Sciences teacher, Pritchard felt torn between two different passions: healthcare and teaching. However, she realized an opportunity to apply both of her interests by teaching Health Sciences and Medical Terminology.
“I love that I have a job through which I can combine my two careers. I have a passion for both healthcare and teaching, so that’s what I hope to share with my students,” Pritchard said.
With Pritchard’s guidance, students will navigate through various careers in the field. Within the Health Sciences curriculum, Pritchard will cover therapeutic, diagnostic, and bioinformatic systems in healthcare.
“Once students find where their interests lie, they can make decisions about the path they want to pursue,” Pritchard said.
For many ambitious students, this pathway leads to work-based learning opportunities such as a Certified Nursing Assistant helping care of elderly patients or even lab shadowing.
She encourages students to challenge themselves with higher-level or dual-credit courses, because they allow students to graduate with medical certifications in subjects such as Medical Scribe Training and Phlebotomy. For students applying to competitive medical programs, these certifications can be advantageous.
“These certifications can provide them with a job right out of high school,during college, or even as a career,” Pritchard said. “They look great on resumes and applications, because they show evidence of prior medical training and direct patient care.”
The Health Sciences curriculum is inclusive of complex subjects from medical ethics to sensitivity as health professionals. Being a former physical therapist, Pritchard understands cultural sensitivity is inherently part of patient interactions.
“I want my students to understand that not every patient is going to like you or believe in you, but that’s just part of the profession,” Pritchard said. “We have to learn to look beyond that and treat them like we would want to be treated if our roles were switched.”
At the frontier of medicine is biotechnology: an interdisciplinary field using engineering and science has resulted in innovations from genetic therapy to insulin. Pritchard is ready to equip her students with the necessary skills to be open-minded learners.
“The healthcare field is ever-changing,” Pritchard said. “It’s so important to stay on top of new and innovative studies and discoveries, so I am trying to build those habits now.”
Even though Medical Terminology and Health Science are typically memorization-based, Pritchard realizes that her students learn in different ways. Emerson High School is beginning to encourage Project-Based Learning, a new instructional style involving collaboration. In Pritchard’s class this is developed through group projects in class. Their projects can range from learning about the historical significance of healthcare to types of equipment used in diagnostic and therapeutic systems.
“PBL gives students the freedom and control to explore the best way of learning for themselves,” said Pritchard. “Facilitating PBL in my classroom provides an avenue for them to do so.”
Pritchard is not just active inside of the classroom as a teacher, she is an advocate for maintaining balance between academics and home life.
“My passions outside of teaching are spending time with my family, running, and working out regularly,” Pritchard said. “Mental health is as important as physical health in my opinion, and that is something I want my students to understand as well.”
As the Health Sciences students are completing their first projects of the quarter and HOSA club activities begin, Pritchard wants to instill confidence and grow the relationship she has with her students.
“I love getting to know my students and providing them with a safe space to be themselves,” Pritchard said.
