The physical move of the HPO into a suite shared with the College of Natural Sciences Career Services Office coincides with an administrative consolidation designed to meet the needs of students more effectively, said Dr. Ray Easterlin, director of HPO and CNS Career Services.
The mission of both offices, to help students pursue a vocation after graduation, remains unchanged, Easterlin said.
HPO will continue to hold its spring career fair, distribute scholarships, and will retain the Joe Thorne Gilbert, M.D., Lectureship, which has brought to campus such notables as Dr. Hunter “Patch” Adams, former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and neurologist Oliver Sacks.
The HPO assists any university student who wants to have a career as a healthcare professional, in more than 200 occupations ranging from physician to clinical lab scientist to medical illustrator, said Lagowski, who is a professor of neurobiology.
However, “Sometimes the most important thing is to help students realize it’s okay not to go into a health profession,” she said, citing as an example former pre-med major and university alumnus Michael Dell, who decided to focus on his entrepreneurial efforts after taking advantage of HPO services.
Lagowski, who joined the University in 1959, continues to teach an undergraduate course on physiology and functional anatomy. She remains co-director of the Health Care in Mexico program, which allows undergraduate students to study at the teaching hospital and clinics at the University of Guadalajara for six months.
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