A Healthcare Career Hub Coming To Crown Heights

Medgar Evers College will host a Healthcare Career Hub, Mayor de Blasio announced last week.

“In the years ahead, we will make New York City the public health capital of the world,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio in his State of the City Address.  “We’re going to create opportunities in the new economy for folks who haven’t had their fair share. At Medgar Evers College, in Brooklyn – New York City’s one historically Black college – we are going to create a health care career hub that focuses on training the community for the jobs that will grow from this point on, an accelerator program to jumpstart the careers of our next generation of health care workers.”

While the Healthcare Career Hub is still in the beginning stages and little has been decided on, said Giulia Prestia, Associate Director of External Communications at Medgar Evers College, it will feature degree and non-degree healthcare career-focused programming to serve high school students, current Medgar Evers students, and community residents.

Rudy Crew, President of Medgar Evers College, has been working on the idea since 2018. His vision is to create a healthcare career pipeline, designed in a way that would encourage students of all ages and life stages to explore careers in the healthcare industry and provide them with the education and training to achieve their career goals. Crew along with Augustine Okereke, the Provost of Medgar Evers College, and several senior staff members met with Deputy Mayor Thompson to discuss the idea.

“Several years later, the project is still in its infancy, but the College is excited to partner with the Mayor’s Office and Deputy Mayor Thompson’s Office to fully develop the Medgar Evers College Healthcare Career Hub to directly benefit our students and the larger community,” said Prestia.

“Specific careers can include, for example, nurse, dental hygienist, health educator, and hospital administrator,” said Prestia, and students will be prepared for healthcare careers through academic programming, a new curriculum, and practical internships.

“All of this ties back into our mission,” said Prestia.

“We’re serving the community, students who come from Central Brooklyn. We are a Predominantly Black Institution (PDI), we’re a Minority Serving Institution (MSI), that is who we are. We’re serving, giving community access to higher education to generally a historically underserved population. This goes hand in hand with our mission to do that. Healthcare is booming. The need is great, from a consumer standpoint, the need is great from our students who are coming to the college with dreams and hopes of becoming healthcare professionals. This is a great way to encompass all of those goals and to reach all of those goals,” said Prestia.

No dates have been announced, there is no timeline for opening, and no information was provided on the funding streams for this project.