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Get Involved

Health professions institutions can get involved in Health Professions Week (HPW) by promoting the event, hosting an community event, and/or offering your expertise. The 2017 events will include a virtual fair, online treasure hunt, as well as on-campus and community outreach events.

Institutions with one or more participating health professions are invited to join HPW by:

  • Providing practitioners for the virtual fair on Wednesday, November 8.
  • Hosting a Community Connect Day on Thursday, November 9.
  • Providing a speaker or panel member for ‘A Day in the Life’ video(s).
  • Marketing the event.

HPW Virtual Fair, Wednesday, November 8

The free virtual fair on Wednesday, November 8, 2017 is open to high school students, guidance counselors, undergraduates and advisors. The virtual booths will feature the 21 participating health professions and host clinicians and educators who will chat live with participants and answer questions from 9:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m., Eastern Time.

If your institution has practice faculty, students or alumni from any of the participating health professions, encourage them to volunteer to serve as chat leaders for their respective professions during the virtual fair for an hour or more. Individuals who wish to volunteer should email the appropriate association contact or healthprofessionsweek@gmail.com.

Community Connect Day, Thursday, November 9

Institutions are invited to host on-campus or community events to actively engage high school and college students. By hosting an event on November 9, HPW will promote your event to all registered attendees. Start planning an event by following these steps:

  • Decide which professions on campus will participate. Bonus points for interprofessional events!
  • Select a location, time, and audience.
  • Set an agenda and find speakers and volunteers.
  • Market the event. HPW will promote the event to all registered attendees, but each Community Connect Day should also take steps to proactively market both the physical event and HPW overall to prospective health professionals in their city.

Tips for planning Community Connect Days:

  • Be creative. Consider interactive or simulated workshops on team-based care, interprofessional collaboration and more to expose interested students to the different health professions’ roles and responsibilities.
  • Consider diversity. It’s important to think about the diversity of student participants and health professions that are represented. Engage potential students from underserved areas of your community. Invite other health professions from your campus or neighboring universities to collaborate in this event—there are 21 health professions participating in Health Professions Week 2017.
  • Use current health professions students. Students are our best ambassadors; they can help plan and execute an event. Reach out to your college’s health professions student organizations for assistance.
  • Keep it educational. Create activities to help prospective students understand the necessary steps to prepare for health professions education and a career as a health care provider.
  • Think outside the box for marketing. Market to area high school students and counselors, as well as undergrads and health professions advisors in all areas of your community.
  • Employ social media. Promote your event and Health Professions Week via Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat using the hash tag #HPW2017.
  • Engage all members of campus. Your event doesn’t have to be planned and executed in a vacuum. Use undergraduate admissions staff (think recruitment!), health professions advisors, student organizations and career services as partners in creating your event.

When you have planned an event in coordination with Health Professions Week, please complete this form so we can share the information with interested participants. The earlier the event is submitted, the more HPW can help you market.

‘A Day In the Life’ Videos

Each health profession has been invited to produce and submit up to five videos for a series of videos inspired by TED Talks. It is meant to spark conversations and interest around careers in the health professions.

Do you know a practitioner, student, or faculty member who can speak to one about the profession in a fun, creative, and audience-specific way? Email healthprofessionsweek@gmail.com with your profession and we’ll put you in touch with the representative for your profession. Even if you have a great speaker in mind but no topic, please email!

Possible Topics Include:

  • Why I chose this profession
  • My favorite part of the job
  • Logistics: the hours, number of patients I see, my schedule
  • Interprofessional: what other professions do I interface with
  • The challenges to working in this profession and how I overcome them
  • A case study of a patient that I am most proud of

Market HPW

  • Send the Health Professions Week flyer to prospective attendees in your region or network and include the Health Professions Week registration link.
  • Use your social media accounts on to engage prospective students and share the events with them, using the Health Professions Week flyer to promote the week. Be sure to include the link to Health Professions Week registration.
  • Throughout the week, you can retweet or share announcements from the Health Professions Week Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
  • Watch for additional flyers, emails, and videos from the participating organizations and forward them to your network of prospective health professionals and organizations that support young people’s education.