Director of Respiratory Services Mike Harf and Respiratory Therapy Supervisor Risa Aaronson sit at a table that shows a healthy pig lung (right) and an unhealthy one harmed by cigarette smoke.
Mirror photo by William Kibler
About 150 students from five area high schools visited the Station Medical Center Wednesday for UPMC Altoona’s first-ever Student Career Education Event.
A project of the hospital’s Human Resources Department, the event featured leaders and staffers at 40 tables that represented most of the hospital’s functions, including environmental care, patient transport, food and nutrition, respiratory therapy and the new school of nursing.
“We wanted to get them acclimated to what positions we have to offer,” both at the hospital and its ancillary locations in the community, said Sarah Greene, the hospital’s senior HR director.
The hospital initiated the project by contacting guidance counselors at the area’s high schools, so the counselors could invite interested juniors and seniors, Greene said.
The schools — Altoona, Hollidaysburg, Bellwood-Antis, Cambria Heights and the Greater Altoona Career and Tech Center — bused the students who wanted to come to the Medical Center.
About 20 showed up at the table for the new UPMC Mercy School of Nursing at UPMC Altoona, which will start its first classes in fall 2026, said Pittsburgh-based Brandy Hershberger, chief nursing officer for UPMC, who oversees what will soon be eight UPMC nursing schools.
Of those 20 students, 15 declared their hope of becoming nurses, Hershberger said.
Many of them were surprised — seemingly in a good way — that by attending the new school, they could become registered nurses within 16 months through its “diploma” program, according to Hershberger.
There are other paths to becoming an RN: a two-year associate’s degree, and a four-year bachelor’s degree.
Some of the students were also surprised that the program at the new school will be contained within the UPMC Altoona hospital complex — unlike some diploma programs, where classes and clinical experience take place at separate sites, Hershberger said.
The nursing school’s participation at the career event reflects part of its effort to attract students — the more traditional part, aimed at new high school graduates.
In the current era, nursing schools like hers will also be trying to attract non-traditional nursing students — older individuals, including those with bachelor’s degrees in some other subject, she said.
The UPMC schools of nursing will host three virtual information sessions aimed at prospective students like those who visited Wednesday’s event. They’ll be held at 9 a.m. Nov. 11; 6 p.m. Nov. 25; and 1 p.m. Dec. 11.
Those interested in attending one of them can sign up at forms.office.com/r/5AgqWHE1RZ.
Director of Respiratory Services Mike Harf manned a table Wednesday with a pair of pig lungs hanging in front — one pink and one dark gray and black.
The table was doing double duty — as an inducement for students to consider respiratory therapy as a career and as encouragement for students to avoid or quit smoking and vaping themselves or to take the anti-smoking and vaping message with them back to family and friends, Harf said.
“It might send a jolt,” he said.
One student said she plans to use what she saw at the table to urge an uncle who smokes to quit, Harf said.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.