Fellow Bio:
Mindy Christianson is originally from Stanley, Wisconsin, where she grew up the oldest of ten children on a dairy farm. She received a degree in Journalism from UW-Madison in 1994 and worked in advertising for three years before returning to school to pursue her dream to become a physician. She completed a second degree in Bacteriology in 2002 from UW-Madison. While in college, her extracurricular activities have included: writing for the student paper, working as a page for the Wisconsin State Senate and interning at two local television stations. She has also been a teaching assistant for an undergraduate microbiology lab class and is currently an instructor for the American Red Cross, certified to teach CPR, First Aid, Babysitting and Disease Prevention.
Mindy has volunteered for the Red Cross by working at first aid stations at community events and being "on call" for the local disaster team. She has also volunteered her services to certify the staffs of non-profit agencies such as the YWCA and Boys & Girls Clubs. Last year, she organized a donation drive for a domestic abuse shelter, held a "Giving Tree" party for needy children with the Salvation Army, and worked with Shaken Baby Alliance to educate future babysitters. She has also volunteered at Mercy Hospital in Janesville as a patient escort.
Mindy lives in Janesville with her husband, Jeff, and son, Cade, who is 4.

Inputs: We both grew up in small Wisconsin towns and have realized how rare it is forl youth from rural communities to pursue careers in medicine. The main focus of our project is to pomote careers in medicine and other health professions to youth in rural areas. This will potentially increase the health care provider population in rural areas.

Activities: We will be holding a seminar entitled, "Health Careers Behind the Scenes" for 80 youth, ages 13-16, at an annual 4-H Youth Leadership Conference held in June in Madison. Our project partners include the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and AHEC.

Short term outcomes: We will design and implement the seminar. We will design and distribute a health care career resource guide for seminar participants. We will design an evaluation to assess the short term effectiveness of the seminar that will be completed by participants at the end of the seminar.

Final outcomes: We will evaluate the long term effectiveness of the project by sustained communication with seminar participants. We will find incoming LOCUS fellows to continue our project next year.

• Our primary goal is to hold a Health Careers Behind the Scenes seminar for 80 youth, ages 13-16, in association with the 4-H youth conference held June 17-18, 2003 at the UW-Madison campus.
• We are committed to learning more about determinants of rural health in Wisconsin. We will attend a conference for rural women interested in health care sponsored by Partners in Agricultural Health in Wisconsin.
• We will assist AHEC with their Health Careers Summer Camp.

• Follow-up with youth after seminars.
• Tracking success and realizing this is a long-term project.
• Realizing this is a very big issue overall and we will only be making a small dent.

AHEC is providing us with a short health care career video as well as bookmarks with their website address which offers a variety of information regarding possible health careers. We will be using organs and x-rays form the summer Gross Anatomy class and resources from DOC to do an organ demonstration. We need to purchase 82 binders and do some printing of materials to complete the health care career resource guides for all participants.

Last update:

September 13, 2002

A indicates the item has been completed.

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