Being a successful allied health professional takes more than getting good grades — it also requires understanding yourself and others. For this reason, Rush offers the Professional and Personal Roadmap of Opportunities (PRO) to undergraduates in the health sciences, imaging sciences and vascular ultrasound programs.
Benefits of PRO
Every semester, undergraduates at Rush take part in PRO workshops that help them thrive inside and outside the classroom, says Kenya McGuire Johnson, PT, MA, CHC, assistant professor and manager of student professional and career development for undergraduate studies.
First-year workshops focus on preparing students for academic success. For example, students lead presentations in front of their classmates to build confidence and communication skills. They also explore their learning style and discover valuable ways to improve their study habits. “While the coursework is designed to benefit everyone, it can be especially valuable to first- generation college students or older students returning to school after a break,” Johnson says.
In their second year, undergraduates partake in workshops on identity development based on principles from The Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED) Project, a national organization that promotes learning through identity development. These workshops, which include carefully curated discussion topics every week, build self-awareness that helps graduates succeed in their chosen fields, Johnson says. “During the workshops, students reflect on their own stories and how those stories impact their sense of belonging, biases and how they may treat others,” says Johnson, who is also director of diversity, equity and inclusion for the College of Health Sciences.
“Better understanding their own stories and hearing other people’s stories helps them become more informed practitioners and future leaders.”
Finding balance and a path forward
Students value Rush’s unique, deliberate approach to personal and professional development and how it helps them recognize their potential. “At other universities, you cannot get the opportunities afforded to us as undergraduates at Rush,” says Clarissa Slowik, who earned a BSHS degree from Rush in 2023. “The professional development at Rush enhanced the leadership skills that I didn’t realize I already had.”
PRO helped Slowik boost her academic skills and find the balance she needed when she first started at Rush. “Being a wife, mother and full-time student, I realized I couldn’t pour from an empty cup, so self-care was my main focus for the first year,” says Slowik, who lives in Justice, Ill. For her, finding balance often involved working on crafts with her daughter or taking a family hike so she could focus on the present moment.
In addition, completing the second-year PRO content on identity helped Slowik build empathy for people with different experiences. “It has helped me understand where people are coming from and made my brain slow down during conversations or in situations where I don’t know everything,” she says. “It’s also helped me grow as an individual and as a professional.”
“The professional development at RUSH enhanced the leadership skills that I didn’t realize I already had.”
Her undergraduate work at Rush also set her on the path to achieving her career goals. “Through the Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences program, I found my calling in nursing,” says Slowik, who was accepted into Rush’s Generalist Entry Master’s (GEM) in Nursing program and plans to pursue her doctorate of nursing practice so she can become a gynecologic oncology provider.
Validating others’ experiences
Nada Elagha, BS, RVT, who graduated from the Bachelor of Science in Vascular Ultrasound program in 2023 and is now a registered vascular sonographer with MIMIT Health in Chicago, has been using some of the lessons she learned in PRO in her new role as a clinical preceptor teaching students about ultrasound.
“I can apply what I learned in PRO because I’m the front line for these new students,” she says, adding that one of her key takeaways from PRO was the importance of self-care as a health care provider. “We have to be able to hold ourselves up before we can hold someone else up.”
Elagha, who was raised in the Chicago area, applied to Rush’s vascular ultrasound program because she liked health care and thought her degree would open doors. She especially enjoyed the SEED curriculum and discussing sociopolitical issues that can affect how allied health professionals relate to their patients. As a provider, Elagha has integrated those lessons into her current work to enhance the patient experience.
“To me, it’s very important that any time I have a patient, I’m continuously validating how they’re feeling,” she says.