Scott, LaPointe Interviewed by NBC5 for AHEC Week
Leading up to National AHEC Week March 24–28, Jennifer Scott, Psy.D., executive director of the Southern Vermont Area Health Education Center (AHEC), and her counterpart at Northern Vermont AHEC, Nicole LaPointe, M.S.W., spoke with NBC5 about efforts to grow and strengthen the health care workforce. Centers in the Vermont AHEC Network, which operates statewide—with bases in St. Johnsbury, Springfield, and at the Larner College of Medicine at UVM—recruit, train, and retain health professionals to work in medically underserved areas.
“The Vermont AHEC Network envisions access to care for all Vermonters,” Scott said. “That’s why we do this work. We believe that when health care needs are met, our communities are stronger, they’re more resilient, and everybody’s better off."
The network works with middle school students all the way through practicing professionals to provide mentorship, recruitment initiatives, continuing education, and more, Scott explained.
Scott and LaPointe emphasized there is a wide range of careers in health care—far beyond just doctors and nurses.
“There are so many opportunities right now being offered by employers to support the advancement, internally, of their staff in order to fill the vacancies—the professional and technical vacancies that they have,” LaPointe said. “This opportunity provides a sort of new opening for individuals. We tend to think being a health professional requires somebody to go right from high school into college, sort of have a straight-line trajectory, and that’s just not the case anymore.”
LaPointe said adult education centers, technical high schools, high school guidance counselors, and many others are valued partners in the work of the Vermont AHEC Network.