Mirror News Columnist

Ron Bodurka, Associate Dean of Health Careers at Henry Ford Community College, is a six year cancer survivor. He remembers waking up in intensive care at University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor following cancer surgery to see a former HFCC student adjusting his tubing.

“’Thank God we didn’t lower our standards,’ I said to myself,” said Bodurka. “If ever I needed a feedback or ‘outcome assessment’ of our program, that was it.”

Henry Ford Community College offers 12 programs in health careers, which Bodurka described as niche health programs (services). The niche programs provide supportive services associated with the health field. Nursing, a major health career program, is separate from the health careers division.

In addition to nursing there are hundreds of different options in health care, though many people may be unaware of them. Take optometry, for example. HFCC is the only college in Michigan—and the only program between here and Chicago—that provides an opportunity for students to get involved in the field of optometry.

Bodurka is proud of the track record of HFCC health career graduates. One season the U-of-M hospital hired all of the graduates from the respiratory program. Obviously, this demand gives credibility to the school during a time when jobs in the health careers have been quite competitive.

Bodurka said, “One of the things that I find most interesting is that when you think of health careers in this area, you think of Henry Ford and DMC. But we also have U-of-M/Ann Arbor health care systems, who hire a lot of our students, and they are 30 minutes from HFCC.”

Bodurka went on to say that the one good thing about these (niche) jobs is that you can go anywhere in the country and are not locked into the (metro Detroit) region. So, if you are a respiratory therapist, you can go to Florida, Las Vegas or California, for example.

Social and Economic Environment

Career markets are changing and decreasing, and there is a move to health careers.

“We are trying to provide opportunities for our students,” said Bodurka. “It has gotten harder in the last few years because jobs in the other sectors have dried up, so a lot of folks are turning to health careers. Therefore, jobs in that sector have become more competitive than they were three years ago. It means that students who had their pick of the top five choices no longer have their pick from any one of them.

“Recent changes in the auto industry have impacted the health field in several ways,” continued Bodurka. “One of them is that many former auto workers now in the health field are not retiring in the numbers they use to due to an unpredictable economy. Those positions are not opening up for new entries into the field. This has tightened the job market.”

Internships Jump Start Your Career

Given the increasing competitiveness of a job in the health field, Bodurka was asked how students could develop ways to increase their chances of getting that first job.

“When they are doing their clinical rotations,” he said, “they have to realize they are being evaluated not only by the instructors but by the staff at the institution. So if they go in the clinic with a chip on their shoulder and are routinely late or routinely absent, they are not helping themselves, even if that institution doesn’t hire them.

“If they go to another institution, the health community is a fairly tight community and they talk among themselves. If the student displays a poor attitude or they show that they really don’t care that much, it gets out into the professional community and the student will find it hard to get jobs.”

Health Field is a Changing Environment

In regard to the various positions within health care, Bodurka said, “The services for health care go beyond the hospital. Post hospital health care is offering many career opportunities. Several services which were strictly inpatient are having an increasing occurrence in the homes of the patients. Visits by traditional health professionals are occurring in the home, and there is a supportive health care industry evolving from this fact.

Bodurka said that “it’s going to be interesting to watch how this whole national outlook is going. It is going to have an impact on the industry: the bottom line (financially) has caused services such as convalescence and rehabilitation to take place in satellite locations and the home. It is interesting watching the hospitals trying to gauge the impact of the national scene.”

In summary Ron Bodurka is proud of the development and growth of HFCC and its students, and said, “I would strongly encourage my students to go on with their training.”