TY Health Careers Showcase Attracts Over 1,600 Students 

 TY Health Careers Showcase – TY Student Orla Carr, Scoil Na Tríonóide Naofa, Doon, County Limerick pictured above logs in from home to the Junior Health Sciences Academy TY showcase

TY Health Careers Showcase Attracts Over 1,600 Students 

TRANSITION Year students from across the MidWest have participated in one of the year’s biggest careers events, with a particular focus on healthcare. 

Over 1,600 students from Limerick, Clare and Tipperary – and as far afield as Kerry, Cork and Galway – registered for the Junior Health Sciences Academy ‘Early Careers’ showcase which was held over two days on Zoom. 

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Hosted by the Health Sciences Academy, together with Limerick Clare Education & Training Board and Limerick Education Centre, this virtual career fair provided TY students with an introduction to careers in healthcare.

Among the highlights of the programme was the advice shared by Hurler of the Year Gearoid Hegarty and Ireland hockey international Naomi Ni Chearbhaill. Both star athletes are teachers and spoke of how they had overcome adversity and improved their resilience levels.

Naomi, a teacher at Gaelcholaiste Luimni, spoke of how physiotherapy had been crucial to Naomi’s recovery from the ruptured ACL she suffered playing in an All-Ireland quarter-final for the Clare football team in August 2018. After a long rehabilitation, Naomi is back in action and training with the Irish hockey team ahead of their Olympic Games debut in Tokyo later this year.  

Naomi Ni Chearbhaill chats with Kieran Sweeney, Director of the Limerick Education Centre

“I am used to a timetable when I am training and when I am teaching so to have had such a long road to rehabilitation over many months meant it was important for me to set goals for myself and to stick to them. Because I was writing these goals down at the start of the week, I said to myself well I had better get them done by the end of the week, even if it was only myself or my friends reading the blog! So even at the start, whether it was something silly like being able to put on my own socks again by a certain date, or later going on through walking, jogging and running, to doing a bit of gym work, I had to stick with it. ” said Naomi. 

Gearoid Hegarty, a teacher in Desmond College, Newcastle West said, “I know it is a cliché but if you are passionate enough about something and you put in the hard work, there is nothing you cannot achieve. There are 168 hours in a week and you can put any number of those hours towards what you want to be in life whether that is an athlete or a doctor or whatever it is you want to achieve.” 

Over the course of two days, students heard directly from healthcare staff, including doctors, nurses and midwives, paramedics and allied health professionals, In addition, the TY students learned all about college life from those enrolled in the various health sciences programmes at the University of Limerick, including nursing, midwifery, medicine, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, human nutrition and dietetics, occupational therapy, psychology and paramedic studies. University of Limerick staff were also on hand to give advice on programmes and entry requirements.

Gearoid Hegarty chats about careers and the recipe for success with Miriam McCarthy, Health Sciences Academy Manager

Dr Roisin Cahalan, School of Allied Health at the University of Limerick commented: “In designing this programme, we wanted to ensure that anybody in Transition Year who is considering healthcare as a career would be able to hear not only from the professionals but from the students studying those courses in the here and now in this region. We made sure to include students on programmes right across the range of health sciences and in particular those more senior students who have been on clinical placements and who have experience of studying and being on placement both before and during the pandemic.” 

 
Miriam McCarthy, Health Sciences Academy Manager, said: “Covid-19 has completely changed everything in healthcare not just in terms of how we work but also in terms of how we learn and train. One of the positives of this event was that in moving to a virtual event, we have been able to accommodate a greater number of TY students and a broader range of speakers than ever before. In organising this event, we were careful to hold brainstorming sessions with TY students and their coordinators on how we could make it more relevant for them and I think the value of that preparatory work has been demonstrated with the fantastic attendance over the two days. ” 

For more on Limerick Clare Education and Training Board go HERE 

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