Wilcox Health Career Fair Gives 100 Kauai Students Hands-On Medical Experience

More than 100 Kauai high school students rotated through 15 stations at Wilcox Medical Center in Līhuʻe on March 17, practicing CPR, operating robotics equipment, peering into CT scanners, and slipping on virtual reality goggles that simulated the sensory challenges faced by concussion patients.

Students from Kapa'a, Kauai, Waimea, and Island School spent the day at Wilcox Medical Center and Kauai Medical Clinic, where staff ran booths covering disciplines from rehabilitation services to food and nutrition. The annual event is part of a Hawaii Pacific Health initiative that ran a parallel career fair at Pali Momi Medical Center on O'ahu the same day, with nearly 200 students participating across both islands combined.

The VR concussion simulation was among the more striking stations at the Wilcox fair. Students used simulation goggles to experience firsthand the perceptual disruptions that accompany traumatic brain injury, a format that went beyond the poster-and-pamphlet model of traditional career outreach. Star, Wilcox Medical Center's facility dog, also moved through the event, spending time with students between stations.

A Kauai High School student enrolled in HOSA, the health occupations student organization, was photographed working a robotics station, watching his movements track on a monitor in real time. Other students were photographed from inside the bore of a CT scanner, an image that illustrated how deliberately hands-on the fair was designed to be.

Amber Elkington, director of clinical operations at Kauai Medical Clinic, said the event carries particular weight for staff who grew up on the island. "To me, this event really hits home," Elkington said. "We're not just talking about our future workforce. We're talking about the future of Kauai."

That local dimension runs through the fair's structure. Many of the staff members who ran stations were raised on Kauai and now work at the same institutions they once visited as students. Waimea High School students, notably, have taken that cycle further: with support from healthcare professionals, they coordinate their own community health fair for island residents, using what they learn at events like this one to build programming for their neighbors.

The Wilcox fair has become an established feature of Hawaii Pacific Health's outreach calendar. On O'ahu, Pali Momi cardiologist Dr. John Kao spoke to Aiea High School students about cardiac function and demonstrated specialized medical instruments, while Pali Momi chief of staff Dr. Jason Isa, himself an Aiea High graduate, addressed students about the ceiling they shouldn't place on their ambitions. "You're not limited by what people tell you, and you're not limited by your or other people's expectations," Isa said. "You can be whatever you want to be.