For the first time, Lakeshore High School will be represented at the Healthcare Occupation Students of America national competition.
Sophomore Tanishka Jadhav finished third at the 2023 Michigan HOSA State Leadership Conference in the Healthy Lifestyle category. She moves on to represent the region at the HOSA’s International Leadership Conference in Dallas from June 21-24.
“I’m super excited,” said Jadhav, who was recognized by the Lakeshore School Board on Monday.
HOSA is a global student-led organization with a mission to empower students to become leaders in the global health community through education, collaboration, and experience. The Competitive Events Program is designed to recognize students who are willing to pursue excellence by preparing for competition.
For her category, Jadhav had to adopt a healthy habit with the idea that it would have a positive impact on her life. She chose Ayurveda, a natural therapy based on the idea that disease is due to an imbalance or stress in a person’s consciousness.
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, Ayurveda “encourages certain lifestyle interventions and natural therapies to regain a balance between the body, mind, spirit, and the environment.” Jadhav said she has been practicing for eight months.
“It’s deeply rooted in Hinduism,” Jadhav said. “They do yoga and madidate and stuff – so for me personally, I did 30 minutes of yoga, 30 minutes of meditation and adopted a healthy lifestyle. … It’s been quite the laborious process, but I feel great and I’m so excited for what it has to offer.”
As the competitors advance in the competition, they have to ramp up the intensity of their chosen lifestyle. They are also given a multiple-choice test on the topic and must complete judge’s interviews.
“It’s not just adopting a lifestyle,” said Lakeshore Certified Nursing Assistant teacher and Berrien County HOSA coach Savannah DeVries. “It’s adopting a lifestyle and analyzing a lifestyle, recording a lifestyle, having journals, and then like charting her mood and just really investigating how the lifestyle has changed her. So, it’s really analytical and also about health.”
DeVries, in her fifth year at Lakeshore, said the local HOSA program is expanding and she’s proud to be able to compete with students from health-focused schools from the Detroit area.
“They really dominate,” said DeVries, of the other schools. “I really am proud because we hold our own. Our students are really smart and they really do well.”
To learn more about HOSA, visit hosa.org.
