The "Wear a Scrub...Get a Career Program" was designed and created by Dr. Linda Rhodes, an education consultant to the former Hirtzel Institute on Health Education & Aging at Mercyhurst University. She is CEO and Founder of Wear a Scrub...Get a Career. Dr. Rhodes has been working with youth for two decades developing allied health career summer camps and the Wear a Scrub program as a means to inspire young people from diverse backgrounds towards health careers. Dr. Rhodes is also President of the  Pennsylvania HOSA Foundation (Health Occupations Students Association) awarding over a million dollars in scholarships to high school seniors pursuing health careers since the inception of the foundation. She holds a doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

The faith-based program offers Youth Ministers of culturally diverse congregations a program that exposes young people (6th through 8th grade) to seven promising health careers by way of interactive learning. Students learn about each career and are then challenged to create a care plan for a teen involved in a car accident -- "Nikeea's case" as a team.

The "Healing Ministry of Health Careers" activity engages youth to interpret one of four bible passages and report back to the group as to its message related to the spiritual side of health professions and healing. The "Mind, Body and Spirit" activity teaches youth that our health care system of medical specialties can lead people to feel like they are  being treated as body parts rather than as a whole person. At the end of the exercise, youth exchange awareness bracelets with each other that state, "Health Careers Heal: Body, Mind and Spirit." They close the day learning about and discussing health disparities among minority communities and lifestyle changes they can embrace to address it. 

Youth Ministers are provided a step-by-step guide on how to plan, organize and run a Wear a Scrub event at their church. Each activity is easily explained along with a training powerpoint for church groups to follow. Over 500 youth have attended "Wear a Scrub" events in Erie and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was sponsored by COGIC at one of their national conventions in Cincinnati, Ohio upon which the program received rave reviews among youth and Youth Ministers.

                 Wear a Scrub...Get a Career! is a program offered by What About You? LLC