Baltimore students explore healthcare careers at Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital

Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital turned its Baltimore campus into a live healthcare classroom, opening its doors to Baltimore City students for Bring Your Child to Work Day and giving them a look at the jobs that keep a major hospital running.

Students moved through different departments, examined blood cells under a microscope and tried medical equipment used every day at the Saint Agnes Hospital campus. The setting mattered: Ascension Saint Agnes describes itself as a critical care hospital with advanced specialty care, including weight loss surgery, orthopedic care, cancer care, OB-GYN and maternity services, heart care, imaging, lab tests and rehabilitation services all on one campus.

For Tysean Timpson, the experience carried a personal meaning. The Forest Park High School senior attended with his mother and said her progress at work, including a recent promotion, pushed him to keep aiming higher. Timpson already plans to study kinesiology at the University of Maryland and wants to become a physical therapist, a path that fits squarely into the hospital’s rehabilitation side of care.

That kind of exposure matters in Baltimore because the region’s health system needs workers. Maryland workforce reports have pointed to steep nursing shortages, including an estimated gap of 5,000 full-time registered nurses and 4,000 licensed practical nurses. Legislative testimony also cited vacancy rates of about 25% in hospital nursing positions and more than 33% of LPN positions as of 2022, with additional RN and LPN demand projected by 2035.

Hospitals and school leaders have been looking for ways to turn that need into opportunity for city students. The Baltimore Alliance for Careers in Healthcare runs a six-week paid internship for rising juniors and seniors in the Baltimore area, offering one of the clearest on-ramps into the field. Ascension Saint Agnes has also teamed with Coppin State University on youth science and healthcare exposure events that drew more than 100 volunteers from Ascension Saint Agnes, Coppin State University and the University of Maryland Medical School.

Mount Saint Joseph High School students also toured Ascension Saint Agnes in July 2025 for career exploration, visiting the Emergency Department, ICU and Physical and Occupational Therapy areas. Together, those programs show how the hospital is being used as more than a care site. It is becoming a workforce pipeline, one that can connect Baltimore students to stable jobs in nursing, rehabilitation, imaging and other healthcare fields already in demand across the city.