By Lauren Barbour

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Six Health Occupations Students of America – Future Health Professionals (HOSA) students, many of them first-time competitors, emerged from their annual convention with two gold and four bronze medals on Feb. 11. Senior Nikki Chinen and Juniors Marissa Chung, Kayla Kashima and Bethany Castro won bronze in the Health Education category, while Seniors Trent Furuta and Shane Nguyen earned the gold in Pharmacology and Medical Law and Ethics respectively.

“I am very happy to see how they were focused, they took it seriously and (were) able to place at least in the top five. So I was very happy to see that,” said HOSA adviser Shirlen Tanaka.

HOSA is a national organization dedicated to promoting career opportunities in the healthcare industry. “As a nationally recognized organization, it’s good on their resume to show that they are participating in something that is related to class so it is co-curricular as well as showing that they have to be independent, they have to have self-discipline, they have to work hard because all that they’ve done, their studying (for the competition) is outside of class. So some time is given at the beginning to advise them, but majority of their studying was done outside of class,” said Tanaka.

The competition gave students the opportunity to show off what they learned this year, although what form their work took depended on the categories they chose to compete in. “I decided, with my schedule because I kind of have a busy schedule, I just decided I can take a knowledge test which was just studying,” said Nguyen, whose test included 100 multiple choice questions followed by an essay.

Meanwhile, Chinen, Chung and Castro researched and presented on a topic of their choice, which they then presented to a panel of judges. “We had to create a lesson plan and teach students about our topic, which was ‘The Detrimental Effects of Aspartame: The Sweet Poison,’” she explained. “We chose aspartame because we wanted to educate others about a topic that related to everyone, but something that a lot of people didn’t know about. Like, aspartame is used in things like sugar-free gum, diet coke, pudding, some medicines, etc.”

Although they couldn’t completely avoid the pressure competition placed upon them, the students found ways to circumvent the stress. Based on her experiences competing last year, Chinen and her group were able to better manage their time. “(Last year) we started late because we procrastinated and stayed up until 5:30 competition morning writing and memorizing our speech, which wasn’t good at all,” she recalled. “So this time around we started early and really worked hard and met almost every weekend to make sure that our project was the best that it could be in the timeframe that we had.” Nguyen said, “I tried to actually not be stressed because I knew that wouldn’t help me so that’s why consciously I was like, ‘I shouldn’t be stressed like this.’”

In the wake of the competition, the students were satisfied with their results. “I feel like it kind of helped my confidence. I’m not a very confident person so that was a booster for me,” said Nguyen. “I am very proud of my group. All of our hard work and dedication paid off and I am so glad that we placed,” said Chinen.

Now, having gained the chance to enter nationals, the students who earned gold medals have already begun looking forward. “I felt I did well but I could improve. In fact, I should improve before nationals but I felt that I did better than I expected to, which was nice,” said Nguyen.

Nguyen and Furuta will advance to the national competition in Anaheim, Calif. over the summer from June 24 to 27.