Training the Next Generation

As a teaching hospital, Northwestern Memorial's commitment to education extends beyond the physicians who train here and reaches into the community. We offer:

• Easy access to reliable health information
• Hands-on learning experiences
• Job training opportunities

Our youth and education programs introduce career opportunities to future healthcare workers by providing students with a "front-row" view of those careers. Along with our community partnerships and allied health schools, these programs are helping train tomorrow's healthcare workers.

• Medical Explorers
  Northwestern Memorial's award-winning Medical Explorers Post is made up of high school and college students from the city of Chicago and the surrounding suburban areas who are interested in pursuing healthcare careers as physicians, nurses, pharmacists and technologists, as well as careers in business administration, financial management, law and engineering as those fields relate to healthcare. The Medical Explorers program emphasizes career exposure, life skills, service learning, character development and leadership through internships, workshops and one-on-one meetings with healthcare professionals from physicians to hospital leadership.
   
• INROADS
  The mission of INROADS, a national, non-profit organization founded in Chicago in 1970, is to "develop and place talented minority youth in business and industry and prepare them for corporate and community leadership."
  As an INROADS sponsor, Northwestern Memorial provides meaningful experiences through internships, year-round academic instruction and summer workshops to prepare high school and college students for careers in healthcare.
   
• Chicago Public Schools
  Northwestern Memorial partners with the Chicago Public School system's Medical and Health Career Academy, a very rigorous academic track that prepares students at three Chicago high schools for careers in the healthcare industry. As a charter member, the hospital serves an advisory role and provides tours, workshops and summer internships.
   
• Cristo Rey Jesuit High School Corporate Internship Program
  Created as a corporate initiative by Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, the program gives its students an opportunity to work one day a week in a clerical role to gain valuable work experience in a corporate setting. At Northwestern Memorial Hospital, twelve students are gaining experience in information services and human resources.
   
• Northwestern Medicine Scholars Program at
  Westinghouse College Prep
  Launched in 2011, this unique program is one of our newest. A Northwestern Medicine–George Westinghouse College Prep partnership, it is helping to change the face of medicine. Northwestern Medicine Scholars Program cultivates and encourages the high school’s top students to become physicians and biomedical scientists.  
   
• Northwestern Memorial Allied Health Schools
  Northwestern Memorial has responded to the healthcare workforce needs by creating our own training schools for clinical areas where workers are in demand. The Northwestern Memorial Allied Health Schools offer 12- to 21-month post-baccalaureate and/or certificate programs in nuclear medicine technology, radiation therapy, medical sonography and radiography. The majority of the graduates to date have found work upon completion of the program. You can find more information about the programs at www.nmh.org/clinicalschools.
   
• Over the next several years, plans include:
  

  • Providing training opportunities for students in Robert Morris College's surgical technician program

  • Strengthening relationships with local nursing schools to train nurses at the hospital