This summer, a team of students from HOSA attended the state conference and successfully earned second place. The stars of it all, Chris Allen, Kaitlyn Belina, and Lucas Ostermeyer, took the medal with their ‘Fight The Bite’ health education presentation.
“We gave our whole nine months of planning and putting all this effort… [into] a five-minute-long speech that we gave to judges, and we only had one shot,” said Ostermeyer.
HOSA is a club based on a group of people with the same future passion to become a health professional. Not just doctors and nurses, but anyone in the health field, from an anesthesiologist to a zoologist. Although it’s not just about learning what they do, there’s a competitive side to it as well. With a chance to compete and show off their medical skills, they show off their passion to a panel of judges and other students.
For some, HOSA is just a club, but for many, HOSA is just another step into the medical field, building the futures of students. The competitions give them the sense of hard work and perseverance they will have to uphold when they move on to the next step in life.
The heartwarming story behind it all started with the idea that both Allen and Belina’s grandparents had a tick-borne disease called Alpha Gal syndrome. The group wanted to leave its mark with this important chance to educate the panel of judges on different tick-borne illnesses. With this in mind, the three of them came up with the slogan ‘Fight the Bite,’ and throughout the school year, they hosted picnics and seminars to inform the school community on tick-borne illnesses.
“Fight the Bite, which was something Lucas suggested, and it just stuck. We loved it, and from there the project grew bigger than we ever imagined. It took us all the way to internationals, and eventually we even turned it into a nonprofit,” said Allen.
After months of hard work, it all came down to one presentation. Memorizing, repeating, practicing, and editing all ultimately, it was time. As the competition deadline approached, they became increasingly nervous. While they worked harder and harder for the win every day, the competition arrived. With the nerves and stress placed on the three members, they were very anxious about what was to come at the competition.
“I remember Chris and I… stayed up in our hotel all night long. We even went down to the gym and we ran on the treadmill until 3 a.m. to try to relieve our stress because we were so worried that we weren’t going to make it internationally,” said Ostermeyer.
Once they presented their topic, they were concerned about what the judges had to say, but still believed they did great. They knew they would do great on their presentation, but were scared of the questions the judges might ask afterwards.
“We connected with the judges in a genuine way, and they appreciated that we were shining a light on a topic that doesn’t get talked about much. At state, one of the judges even shared that her son had a tick-borne illness, so it really resonated with her. That kind of connection showed us the impact our project could have,” said Allen.
Once it came to awards, the group had to wait a while to hear their names be called, and once they did, they knew it was worth it. The tense atmosphere held the team anxious. Finally, after an hour, their team president, Katie Huynh, screamed with excitement seeing that they placed second.
“[We were] relieved. I know all of us were really nervous, walking into that room, and we had to wait for nearly an hour and a half for our names to get called, and that was tantalizing for us,” Belina said.
They soon found out they placed second at the conference, which they were proud of, but there was one thing stopping them from winning.
“You get five points [taken off] for every time you shake the judge’s hand… Chris and I both went in there, nervous as all, and we both shook three judges’ hands. So that’s minus 15 points for each of us,” Ostermeyer said.
With the rule being so controversial, the team was upset but realized they could learn from this. Learning from that, they hope this year is even better than the last. They are looking forward to the new sponsors and the new members. HOSA aims to plan more effective events and scheduled meetings, to inspire and lead the next generation of future health professionals. With last year’s silver success, the team is ready to turn it gold.
