Career & Professional Development

SWLAHEC & The Medical Field

The shortage of health professionals in all areas of Louisiana is well documented. The Career and Professional Education Department at SWLAHEC works to improve the health status of the residents of southwest Louisiana by ensuring that there is an adequate workforce of professionals to meet their health needs. This department operates or supports a range of programs which deal with exposing elementary and high school students to health careers, working with medical and health education students to enhance their educational experience, and helping to provide continuing education opportunities for health care and professionals. In addition to these programs, department staff collects the data for the annual federal AHEC grant and participates in other local and statewide collaborative efforts to ease the shortages of health professionals.  We refer to these programs as our core AHEC programs.