by Jean P. Fisher

Thirteen-year-old Alashuntae Blunt measures three drops of liquid into a hole on a white plastic test pad, beginning the process of what medical staff at Oakland's Highland Hospital refer to as "dipping pee". After a few moments, Blunt pulls a stick from the test pad and compares the tip to a cylinder marked with a rainbow of colors.

"It's negative!" she exclaims, matching the stick to a deep orange stripe. "This lady is not pregnant."

Blunt, an eighth-grader at Frick Jr. High School in East Oakland, is in her fourth week as a health career trainee in Highland's Model Neighborhoods Program. The program brings groups of six Frick students to the hospital to do filing and other support work in selected Highland departments, including E/R registration, radiology, the laboratory and the dental clinic. At the end of their six-week internships, students leave with a stipend, a certificate and --the program's administrators hope-- a good idea of the many career options the health care industry.

"What we're trying to do is to spark some interest, ignite some type of passion in these kids to help move them forward," said Sonji Walker, who administers the program through the Highland Foundation.

A $50,000 block grant from the city of Oakland enables six groups of six students per year to complete internships. Private foundations fund two additional groups of six, for a total of 48 students per year. Oakland officials, led by Alameda County Supervisor Mary King, and leaders at Highland devised the health career training program in 1991.

To be eligible for a health career internship at Highland, students must be enrolled at Frick Jr. High and write a letter stating their interest in the program. Once accepted, students must stay out of trouble at school and with the law or they are dropped from the program. Walker said one student, the only boy in her current group of six, was dropped after he was charged by police with sexual assault. The other students in the program said the boy is under "house arrest" and has to be home by 4 p.m. each day. He has to wear an electronic alarm on his ankle, the students said.

"It looks like a pager and it gives him electric shocks if he doesn't go home when he's supposed to," Blunt said, fingering the clear pager clipped to her jeans' waistband.

"These kids, some of them shoulder a heavy burden," said Walker, 30. "I had one 15-year-old girl come in her the other day and she told me she's stressing. A friend of hers had a miscarriage and now the friend is pregnant again. Some of these kids are dealing with so many other things that education becomes secondary."

More...

Temicia Vallot, a Registered Medical Assistant at Highland, shows 13-year-old Alashuntae Blunt how to interpret the results of a pregnancy test.









"What we're trying to do is to spark some interest, ignite some type of passion in
these kids to help move them forward."

-- Sonji Walker, program director

Blunt works on the computer in HIghland's OB/GYN and Pediatrics Laboratory as fellow health career intern Althea Foy looks on.

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