Future physician Rylan Setness, a sixth-grader in Park River, ND, listens to the heartbeat of his brother, Caleb.

Some children know from an early age exactly what they want to do when they grow up.  Rylan Setness, a sixth-grader at Park River (ND) Elementary School, is certain he wants to be a doctor.

“I want to go into general medicine,” he said in a recent interview, with a reflective seriousness well beyond his 11 years of age.  “I also want to do missionary medicine, and even work with kids—it would be fun to travel to Australia.”

While Rylan has been tinkering with his career choice for a couple of years, a few events earlier this year cemented his decision to venture into the field of medicine.  The son of Jeremy and Bethany Setness attended a program at school called Inspector Wellness and the Case of the Many Medical Careers.  The five-week program was a partnership effort between Park River’s Elementary School and First Care Health Center to educate the community’s fifth-graders about health careers.  He also attended Science Day at the University of North Dakota (UND) School of Medicine and Health Sciences, a free event for fifth- and sixth-graders designed to get kids fired up for science by featuring a hands-on approach to learning things like “grossology” from UND’s medical students.

Programs that enhance North Dakota’s health care workforce pipeline, like Inspector Wellness, Science Day and others, are central to a new joint venture between UND’s Center for Rural Health and College of Nursing. With $1.28 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, they will develop and implement an Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Program in North Dakota.

Until now, North Dakota was one of only a few U.S. states without a federally funded AHEC, the goal of which is to help clinics and hospitals recruit and retain health care workers in underserved areas, address workforce shortages, and educate students about career options in health care.