Careers in Medicine

• Compare education and responsibilities across healthcare careers

• Examine medical ethics, disparities, costs, and healthcare reform

• Research clinical, administrative, biotechnology, and research roles

• Develop a care plan for a complex patient scenario

• Learn from healthcare professionals and medical facilities when available

• Create and present a case-based career pathway project

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Compare healthcare professions by responsibilities, education, and professional pathways

• Analyze ethical, equity, wellness, and system considerations in healthcare

• Develop and present researched career cases for a selected health profession

Students leave with a completed case-based career project and clearer next steps for exploring medicine, health science, research, and healthcare leadership.

Healthcare career exploration helps students distinguish roles that may require different education, responsibilities, working environments, and strengths. Comparing pathways early can make future academic choices and exploration more informed.

Ethics, disparities, costs, reform, and wellness add context beyond job titles. Students see how professionals work inside a complex system and how personal sustainability matters in demanding careers. Case-based research develops planning, empathy, and communication. Together, these skills strengthen careful reasoning, responsible professional judgment, and the ability to revise a conclusion when new evidence changes the picture.

This course is for high school students who have completed 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade and are interested in medicine, nursing, research, dentistry, pharmacy, hospital leadership, biotechnology, or public health. It fits students who want to compare options before choosing a direction.

Participants should be ready to research professional pathways, discuss complex healthcare issues respectfully, analyze patient cases, collaborate, and present. Curiosity about both patient care and the wider healthcare system will be valuable. Success depends on careful preparation, steady participation, and respect for classmates’ perspectives throughout the course.

Based on students surveyed in Summer Discovery’s 2026 program at the University of Michigan.

Programs on the University of Michigan campus give high-school students the experience of exploring an academic interest in Ann Arbor, a college town where campus and community life blend together. Tree-lined streets, downtown bookstores and cafés, the Nichols Arboretum, and trails near the Huron River create different ways to experience the setting beyond class.

Students learn alongside peers, navigate a large and active campus, and gain independence through everyday choices in a new environment. The experience helps students understand what university life can feel like while giving them space to deepen an interest without having every next step decided. For families, the program offers a meaningful combination of academic depth, community, personal growth, and clearer direction about what a student may want to study or pursue next.

Healthcare includes clinicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, researchers, administrators, public-health professionals, biotechnology teams, and many other roles. Each pathway contributes differently to patient outcomes and system performance.

Students investigate that range through career research, job-fair activities, patient cases, guest perspectives, site visits when available, and a case-based capstone. The course provides a structured way to compare medicine, nursing, research, administration, biotechnology, and allied health careers. The work also shows how specialists collaborate across roles and communicate important evidence-based decisions to colleagues, clients, organizations, or the public in complex professional settings.