Health Care Career Counseling for Minority Students in Secondary

The number of minority health professionals in the United States does not mirror the ratio of minorities in the population. Effective career counseling to encourage minorities to consider health care professions begins at the secondary education level. This collective case study examined career counseling experiences of minority students, comparing them with those of non-minority students. Theories of critical race theory and social cognitive career theory were compared with qualitative interview data collected from student''s parents and counselors in three high schools. The study found that career interests and outcomes expectations, variables within social cognitive career theory, play a major role in career selection for minority students. Minority students are not adequately exposed to challenging health care careers, which contributes to the disparities in the number of health care providers and disparities in health status between minorities and non-minorities. The study also found that counselors are ill prepared in the multicultural dimensions of career guidance counseling, and understaffed when attempting to provide guidance counseling to minority students.