Patient Aide
Around the time 18-year-old Cuyahoga Falls High School graduate Kalpana Ghimire was starting at The University of Akron, she already had a part-time professional job as a medical office associate at Western Reserve Hospital. Ghimire, Bhawana Biswa and two others were hired after taking part in Western Reserve Hospital’s first-of-its-kind Charting Careers program in which high school students do paid co-op internships at the hospital to gain exposure to health care jobs. Entering the health care field as a teen is challenging.
“I remember one of the first times that she took calls. I could see this look on her face,” says Vanessa Case, the office manager at the Center for Pain Medicine where Ghimire works. “She said, Whoa, these calls are a lot.”
To help ease the transition, students at six participating high schools take health care classes as part of the program that started in 2020. They then apply for health care jobs or co-op internships, which helps alleviate staffing shortages. Since this spring, Western Reserve has had eight interns in the medical procedures, information technology, phlebotomy, facility management and nursing departments. Ghimire took classes on medical terminology, anatomy and medical billing during her junior and senior years, worked in a local nursing home and then began the Western Reserve internship where she did scheduling, billing and more. The fast pace and high stress of dealing with patients in chronic pain who want immediate solutions make it a difficult job.
“It’s a lot of critical thinking and problem-solving skills,” Case says. “It seems like everyone says at least once, I can’t do this. Once you start, everything connects.”
Ghimire was so overwhelmed at first that she cried in Case’s office, but Case has seen her learn to speak with confidence and be firm with patients.
“I had this patient that I said, There’s no slot I could put you in this week, and she got really mad,” Ghimire recalls. She scheduled a later appointment and when the patient came in, she remembered Ghimire. “She was like, It’s OK because now I’m all better and I understand. … It feels nice being appreciated.”
While some other Charting Careers students are pursuing jobs as nurses or doctors, it taught Ghimire that she doesn’t want to work in health care but can use what she learned to pursue an international business degree.
“I like being in a leadership role,” Ghimire says. “I’m stronger than I thought.”