Healthcare can be a great career, and Powell Valley Healthcare started a program this year to get Powell High School students interested in the industry.

It’s an afterschool, paid job working in various capacities at the PVHC campus.

“We get to expose a new generation to healthcare,” said Cassie Tinsley, director of human resources for PVHC.

The program had 23 Powell High School applicants this year for eight positions. The students earn some money and gain some experience on the job, and the hospital gets part-time help.

Among the students who work in the program is Isaac Gutierrez, who will enter his junior year at PHS this fall. His mother, Nichol, worked at PVHC for 13 years and encouraged her son to apply.

“Everything at PVHC is great. They really make you want to come back” and do it every year, Gutierrez said.

The tasks vary. Gutierrez does his work at the care center and The Heartland. That includes helping in the kitchen, setting places in the dining room, organizing activities, or “just making things look pretty.” Sometimes, he spends time visiting with the residents.

“A lot of them just want you to sit down and talk,” Gutierrez said.

Karen Zaninovich Parker, director of The Heartland, said the contact with young people is invaluable to the elderly residents. It’s also helpful to the teenagers, as it helps remove the stigma sometimes associated with care of the elderly.

Parker tells the story of one resident of The Heartland who walked into the dining room and saw Gutierrez; the woman said she would have come sooner if she’d had known he was working that day.

“She said he’s just such a nice young man,” Parker said.

Tinsley said one of the important lessons of the program is that careers in healthcare are not limited to nurses and doctors. There’s a range of jobs in the industry, including Tinsley’s, that are different.

Gutierrez said he really likes the variety of tasks he’s assigned, as it lets him see many aspects of the industry.

“I get to see it all,” he said.

Tinsley said the students in the program go through all the same background checks, including drug tests, as any employee of PVHC.

The positions are year-round, and the students in the program can work for more than one year. Some will go off to college — including one student who completed a certified nursing assistant course while getting her diploma. She’s going to go off to complete her CNA certificate and then go right into working at PVHC.

Tinsley said the response she’s gotten from students, residents, and PVHC employees has been very positive. They will continue the program next year, filling any positions that come open.