By Jannah Kalai
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The Health Occupation Students of America—Future Health Professionals (HOSA) state competition featured five gold wins for the MHS all-senior team. Bethany Castro, Cassidy Pasion, Jared Quitoles, Kiersten Rose Reyes and Eden Sun competed in their individual categories for the conference at the Hawaii Convention Center on Feb. 25 and 26. The HOSA state competition allows students to showcase a year’s worth of hard work and research to a panel of judges. Their presentations ranged according to categories; they prepared everything from speeches to portfolios.
“(HOSA) has really opened me up to all kinds of people and professions the health field has to offer. Having a career in medicine isn’t just becoming a doctor, but it is a culmination of people with various skills, professionals such as doctors, nurses and paramedics, that come together to help advance the field of medicine and heal the world,” stated Reyes.
The categories that students compete in all have various preparations required to produce the presentation for the state competition. “I competed in the Clinical Specialty event. This event allows the competitors to gain insight on a health-related career that they’re interested in. Since I want to pursue a career in dentistry, I decided to shadow an Endodontist. I also researched and created a portfolio, then shared a video of myself performing a root canal on an extracted anterior tooth to the judges along with being interviewed,” said Castro. Reyes explained, “For Extemporaneous Writing, we aren’t given anything in advance, except instructions about how to complete the essay. The prompt is kept secret until we enter the room to start our essay. We have to write an essay in 1 hour on any prompt, it can be about anything in the health field or about HOSA. So the outcome could have been very different if I had no knowledge about the prompt.”
Preparing for the competition was an accumulation of both mental and physical readiness. “Prior to competing, I took several months in the writing and editing processes of creating my speech. With help from (Candace) Chun and (Shirlen) Tanaka, I was able to have multiple practice sessions that offered me useful feedback on my speaking skills. Every night, I would recite my speech in front of my parents with a timer handy to determine whether I was speaking at a rightful speed,” noted Pasion.
As the three-day competition began to unfold, the immediate rush of emotions was felt by every contestant as they waited for the results. “During the competition, I was really focused on writing my essay so I’m not really sure how I felt. But after my competition I was extremely anxious about my score. I thought my content was good but I ran out of time when I was double checking my essay. I was worried about my writing and if I had grammar or sentence errors,” said Reyes. “As I was waiting outside for my name to be called to present in front of the judges, my heart was racing. I was surrounded by students who kept reciting their speech – making this situation more stressful. To beat the nerves, I decided to call my parents for a last minute pep talk. After saying my speech in front of the judges, I left the room feeling absolutely proud of myself,” explained Pasion.
It was a shock for everyone when the results were announced. “In my mind were thoughts of disbelief and pure happiness. I couldn’t comprehend that I was able to win gold, in the state, since I had never won anything like that before. I really couldn’t believe it. I was elated, but it all felt unreal, like a dream almost,” exclaimed Reyes. Castro added, “When they called out our school and my name for first place, my mouth dropped. I didn’t even put my make-up on because I wasn’t confident that my interview went as well as I wanted it to. However, I was relieved that the help I got from my mentors, friends, and family, didn’t go to waste.”
All HOSA members extended their gratitude to their friends, families, and mentors Shirlen Tanaka and Candace Chun, advisers of HOSA. They plan to continue to mentally and physically prepare themselves for their move to nationals, which will take taking place later this summer in Nashville, Tenn.
