AHEC is a Community
Every year since we started doing MedQuest over 30 years ago, we have partnered with the local emergency services in La Grande and Island City. We bring the students to the station during camp, and they do rotate through activities with both paid staff and volunteer EMTs.
This year, they loaded a student onto a stretcher and carried them through an obstacle course that included a flight of narrow stairs. They learned how to intubate a person and how to insert an IV using a manikin and some bubble wrap-type packaging. They put neck and leg braces on each other. They played Jenga with the jaws of life. And they did a communication activity where they had to describe a map through a walkie-talkie to another student who had to draw the map. After the rotations, they did a Q&A with the folks at the station, including the fire chief, and then had a big BBQ dinner together. All of this was on the first night of camp.
There’s a few things I want to unpack here. Because this was held on day one, these activities served as team-building icebreakers for the students, and it was highly successful. Our pathway program coordinator who has been to quite a few camps said that it usually takes about 4 days for the campers to warm up to each other, but this year they were friends on the first day.
Additionally, these activities really throw students into the deep end of healthcare—emergency services. Each of the activities showcases a specific part of the work that emergency services does and it’s a good combination of being direct and indirectly tied to healthcare. The obstacle course and Jenga are fun just about every student, no matter what their reason was for coming to camp. It gives them all a chance to learn something difficult—and that’s what the students said was the best part. They loved having a safe space to make mistakes. It really set them up well for the rest of the week.
And the crazy part of all this: we don’t tell the fire department what to do. We ask them for hands-on activities and for them to talk to the campers about their careers, and they plan the rest. They are even working on a book that they will use each year to plan camp. They are so excited for next year already and asked to meet again in the spring so we can get all the details ironed out. They really want to make sure that MedQuest is a valuable experience for the students year after year after year—they plan to do it forever. It’s just part of working for emergency services.
And they aren’t our only partner that’s like this. The Grande Ronde Hospital here in town is so important to our programming that I honestly can’t imagine what NEOAHEC would look like without them. This year, they provided 128 unique shadows in just two days. This requires commitment and buy-in in from every single department, which is amazing to think about. They create our programming as much as we do.
The other regional centers are in the same boat as us. Cascades East in Bend is not just hosted by St. Charles; they have a job shadowing program that brings high school students to job shadows throughout the year at the hospital. AHEC Southwest out of Roseburg partners with FQHCs (Federally Qualified Health Centers) to provide employment to students in a gap year between undergraduate and graduate level programs. It’s what we all do. It’s the only way that we can offer these amazing programs.
Our partners aren’t just names on a list on our site—they are local experts who bring real-life experiences to students. Even though our staff now has someone who can teach, the heart of our programs comes from rural health providers themselves.
All of this builds toward a stronger rural healthcare pathway. Because the small town running-into-everyone-at-the-grocery-store doesn’t just affect our personal lives—it touches every part of living rurally. When local students stay in their hometown, they often return to work alongside the peers and mentors they grew up with. Our providers love job shadowing and career presentations because knowledge-sharing is part of who they are. The expertise is already here. All we do is open more doors so students can access it.
And it’s not just providers who sustain this work—our regional center is supported by foundations, schools, and other community partners who generously contribute through grants, in-kind donations (provider time and meeting space), and volunteer hours. Year after year, they keep investing, and their commitment reinforces the idea that the pathway doesn’t stop at graduation. Students become professionals, professionals become mentors, and the cycle feeds back into itself.
Alongside local support, statewide partners like the Oregon Health Authority also elevate our mission. In 2024, the OHA highlighted our summer health camps in its Strategy Paper on Workforce Development and Retention as a key pathway effort and recommended expansion. Thanks to subsequent OHA funding, AHEC centers across Oregon were able to offer free summer camps this year, removing financial barriers and widening access for students everywhere.
Additionally, Oregon AHEC and its regional centers collaborate throughout the year with monthly director meetings and coordinator meetings, which has strengthened our network through shared lessons and successes.
And so, what I really want you all to walk away with is this: AHEC is built by communities, led by communities, and sustained by communities. Without the heart and passion of partners like our local emergency services, Oregon AHEC would be twenty people sprinkled throughout the state. Instead, because of this shared commitment, our network is magnified into something far bigger—a pathway where the wisdom of local professionals flows directly into the lives of future healthcare workers, right in the community where they all grew up. That knowledge, that generosity, is the health career pathway. It is irreplaceable, and it is the reason we thrive.