Meet the winners of this year’s Spark! Challenge

Northwell Health’s Spark! Challenge is an annual program for high school students across the New York area that brings together educators, schools and lots of passionate Northwell team members. Students who participate in the Spark! Challenge have the opportunity to learn about careers directly from our team members, igniting their spark for healthcare careers. The Spark! Challenge plays a vital role in helping reach, engage and inspire tomorrow’s healthcare leaders.

With this year’s Spark! Challenge bigger than ever, approximately 1,000 students from more than 50 schools participated in hands-on site visits with Northwell team members across more than 81 departments, hospitals and facilities to have a immersive learning experience about healthcare careers.  After their Northwell site visit, students are given the challenge to create a poster featuring one healthcare career they learned about and then present on that career as a team.

Meet the winners from this year’s poster competition below!

First Place: John F. Kennedy High School, Bellmore-Merrick

The students from John F. Kennedy High School, Bellmore-Merrick visited the trauma team at Cohen Children’s Medical Center and learned about an electroencephalogram (EEG) and how placement of sensors on the head produces outputs. They also met patients who have experienced head trauma, including one patient who has a 3-D printed skull. Students then visited the morgue to learn about the brain post-mortem.

After meeting with the team, the students chose to have their poster focus on the child life specialists who help make pediatric patients more comfortable during their hospital visit.

Second Place: Valley Stream South High School

When the students from Valley Stream South High School visited the Department of Family Medicine, they were presented with four simulated cases in Family Medicine. Working together as a team, students had to learn and decide how to care for patients such as a pediatric child in urgent care with a sore throat and an elderly patient who needed an ultrasound. Through these simulations, students left with a better understanding of the variety of cases a Family Medicine care team might see in one day.

These students chose to highlight doctors in their poster and showcase the diverse care they deliver to patients.

Third Place: Baldwin High School

Baldwin High School students spent the day with Northwell’s Corporate Business Development team to discover healthcare careers within business strategy. During the field trip, students were presented with the challenge to form a capital cost estimate for a physician practice based on an outline of a practice assessment. Using a previous example, the students worked through the capital process with a defined budget to discover how business strategy is used to improve the care our patients receive.

Their poster focused on the role of a practice transitioner who is using their knowledge to implement improvements in our practices.

Honorable Mention: Patchogue-Medford High School

Students at Patchogue-Medford High School learned that it takes talent to fill our health system with the right people in the right roles. After meeting with the Talent Acquisition team, they learned how to find candidates who embody the Northwell values from thousands of applicants through attracting, vetting and hiring candidates.

Choosing to highlight a healthcare recruiter, they wanted to showcase the integral role that Talent Acquisition plays in identifying top candidates who are “Made for this.”

Facebook Favorite: Great Neck South High School

Great Neck South High School students traveled to LIJ Forest Hills Hospital to learn about the innovation with healthcare. Arriving at the hospital, students took part in an interactive exercise with the Assistant Director of Environment of Care Compliance/Safety before being split into groups to learn about the different areas of care. The teams learned about safe patient handling, MRI Safety, Operating Room/Delivery Room, basic life support, and wound care. The day concluded through sharing the team’s career journeys.

For their poster, the students chose to highlight the career of an obstetrician and gynecologist. Winning the Facebook Favorite award means that their poster was voted on by hundreds of Northwell team members!

Rookie Poster Award: Plainedge High School

Plainview Hospital hosted the Plainedge High School students and taught them about all of the careers that exist within our Imaging Departments. After attending a lecture and receiving a tour, the students then scrubbed into a procedure in interventional radiology, where they used the ultrasound machines and spoke with team members.

Their poster showcased the role a nuclear radiologist plays within our hospital to help diagnose and treat patients.

Watch our video announcement of the winners below!