SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — Celest Weuve, the director of the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) School of Health Sciences says many of the healthcare fields that struggled with worker shortages before and during the pandemic are still desperate for employees.Â
To address this issue, UIS is partnering with the University of Illinois Chicago College of Nursing's local campus and providers like Memorial Health. This allows students from central Illinois to stay in the area to gain their education, and fill local jobs.Â
"All of us understand the responsibility that we have to the people of Illinois, and it's kind of a two fold responsibility,"Â said Weuve. "The first part of it is to educate good quality health care professionals. And then the other part of it is, by educating those health care professionals, we're then allowing them to be in central Illinois, especially, to provide those that care to the people of our state."Â
Part of this partnership includes new technology, including two Anatomage tables donated by Memorial Health. UIS partners also help provide scholarships to students, so they can continue to pursue careers in the medical field
UIS is doing more outreach to expose students to programs like athletic training and medical laboratory sciences, two fields that have a lot of job openings right now. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2,700 jobs for athletic trainer are projected to be created on average each year until 2034. The same source expects 24,000 new openings each year in medical laboratory science.
"If you can't fill that athletic trainer position, you don't have somebody standing on the sideline making sure your kid is okay," said Weuve. "With more medical laboratory scientists, we can process more tests and have more labs."Â
Weuve added that because these fields are so desirable, it is easy for students to find jobs after graduation.Â
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