Inside the Steady Pulse of the HOSA Club

In their very final club meeting of the school year, members of HOSA gathered in Greenwood’s fourth floor exercise room. Split up into two teams (Cardiac Team and Team Crash), club members participated in Cardiac Crash, an interactive CPR experience through the Heart & Stroke Foundation. Practising their chest compressions on volleyballs, the teams competed against each other in this heart-pumping experience.

Part workshop, part simulation and part quiz, Cardiac Crash offers a unique, immersive CPR experience for the students. With actors, the video showed a scenario where a teacher suffers from cardiac distress in a school environment. Additionally, the video also showed the cardiac distress patient momentarily opening his eyes during CPR which could occur in real life but can’t be done with a regular CPR dummy. Teams were also quizzed on the correct course of actions and awarded points for correct answers. In the end, Team Crash won and saved their patient. 

“When I’ve done first aid courses in the past, usually it’s pretty calm and methodical,” says Sloane Basch ‘26. “But this video simulation had unhelpful bystanders and the actors really put a lot of raw emotion into their roles. It puts you into more realistic stressful situations.”

This wasn’t the only workshop for the HOSA Club this year. Over the year, students took part in hands-on workshops on suturing, stethoscope use, taking vitals and more - usually with Greenwood’s school nurse, Nurse Kash lending her expertise. Since establishing a HOSA chapter here at Greenwood last school year with Ms. Herod’s support, this year’s club execs Sloane Basch ‘26 and Astrid Kim ‘26 set out to grow club membership and showcase the numerous diverse roles available in the health science field. “It’s our baby and we try to grow it,” Sloane fondly says.

On both counts, they were successful. First, they expanded membership from four students last year to a group of 20 students who regularly attend. With respect to their second goal, they managed to accomplish this by inviting a range of guest speakers. Students heard from different types of doctors and nurses, with many speakers being either Greenwood alumni or related to Greenwood community members. Guest speakers also helped assure club members that there’s still plenty of time to make choices and it’s also never too late to make a career change. “I found it really insightful to hear from one guest speaker who spoke about her different routes from working in the hospital to owning her own clinic,” reflects Sloane.

Thanks to Astrid and Sloane’s efforts, the pulse of the HOSA club has found its sinus rhythm. We can’t wait to see what next year’s club execs have in store for this burgeoning club!