The members of DV Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) recently attended the Pennsylvania HOSA State Leadership Conference in Lancaster, Pa. where nine students qualified for the national competition.

The competition took place from March 8-10. The students chose their events for the competition in November and have been preparing for the competition since.

 For the competition the students were required to do various activities to place in the event. Some students needed to take a 50 question test on certain subjects, some students created presentations for the event and others had to demonstrate various health care skills.

“This was the biggest group I have taken, and it was the most fun and we had great results,” said adviser Mrs. Barbra Coyle.

The students were very successful, having four individual students and a group of five students qualify for the national competition.

Senior Heather Connolly took home the gold medal for her event in biomedical laboratory science.

Junior Victoria Sazonov-Smith participated in the event for medical assisting where she earned claimed gold for the event.

“In my event I was a medical assistant where I had to do a testing portion and a skill portion. My testing score allowed me to move on to the skill portion where I had to demonstrate three skills.

The skills included sterile gloving, retrieving patient history and assisting with a physical exam,” said Sazonov-Smith.

Junior Collin Kawan-Hemler participated in the medical reading event where he also won the gold.  Junior Chrissy Nagrowsky earned the gold medal in her event for medical law and ethics.

The group consisting of juniors Lindsey Collins, Brooke Dingman, Pamela Larry and sophomores Ashley Debesis and Savannah Rollar took the bronze medal in the public service announcement event.

The nine students who qualified for the national leadership conference will be travelling at the end of June to Orlando, Fla. for the event.

“We’re all very talented, and we work hard on our events. I’m very hopeful that we will do well, but I’m looking forward to learning a lot there regardless of the outcome,” said Kawan-Hemler.