Students complete summer program

She has wanted to be a nurse ever since she was a child and saw newborns in a neonatal unit. So every weekday this summer, the Freedom HS student has risen early so she can make the 30-minute walk from her home to St. Luke’s University Health Network’s Bethlehem campus.

Daikiry Perez was among 20 high school students who worked this summer as part of the Network’s innovative Health Career Exploration Program. The program, which concluded this month with a luncheon, is for rising seniors who live in the Allentown and Bethlehem Area School Districts and have socio-economic barriers to summer jobs.

Johnell Sloppy, a Behlehem Catholic HS student, helped patient care assistants in a medical-surgical unit at the Bethlehem campus. Johnell wants to be a registered nurse and plans on attending Northampton Community College followed by St. Luke’s School of Nursing. He was drawn to the program because he can work with patients.

Liberty HS student Amelia Hertzog worked in the emergency department at St. Luke’s-Bethlehem. She helped ED techs, who check vital signs, draw blood for testing and administer EKGs.

The Health Career Exploration Program is among a host of St. Luke’s paid and volunteer initiatives that introduces teens and young adults to an industry sector where the demand for employees is only expected to grow as is the need for a diverse workforce. St. Luke’s runs a similar paid exploration program during the school year that targets Allentown and Bethlehem Area students who are not only economically disadvantaged but also have deficient English and math skills.