UNE Health Careers Exploration Camp Connects Maine High School Students to Medical and Dental Professions
The healthcare industry in Maine faces a critical challenge: a growing shortage of qualified professionals across multiple disciplines. From primary care physicians and physician assistants to dentists and dental hygienists, the demand for skilled healthcare workers continues to outpace the supply. In response to this pressing need, the University of New England has developed an innovative approach to workforce development through its annual Health Careers Exploration Camp. This education news from Maine highlights how early exposure and hands-on learning can shape the next generation of healthcare providers.
Understanding Maine’s Healthcare Workforce Challenges
Maine’s rural communities and underserved areas face disproportionate challenges when it comes to accessing quality healthcare. According to state health reports, many counties lack adequate numbers of primary care physicians, dental professionals, and other essential healthcare workers. This shortage creates a ripple effect throughout communities, affecting everything from preventive care access to emergency response times.
The roots of this workforce gap often trace back to pipeline issues—students in rural Maine communities may have limited exposure to healthcare careers during their formative years. Without role models, mentorship opportunities, or hands-on experiences, many talented young people simply never consider healthcare as a viable career path. The UNE Health Careers Exploration Camp directly addresses this gap by bringing healthcare education directly to Maine high school students.
Why Early Exposure Matters
Research consistently shows that career decisions begin forming much earlier than many realize. By the time students reach high school, they have already developed preliminary ideas about what careers are and are not accessible to them. For students in underserved areas, these perceptions are often shaped by limited local examples rather than the full spectrum of possibilities.
Programs like the UNE exploration camp interrupt these limiting narratives by showing students that healthcare careers are attainable, rewarding, and desperately needed in their own communities. When a teenager from a small Maine town interacts with dental students and physicians who come from similar backgrounds, the message is powerful: this career path is available to you.
Inside the UNE Health Careers Exploration Camp Experience
Now in its sixteenth year, the UNE Health Careers Exploration Camp has refined its approach to providing meaningful, hands-on healthcare education. The 2026 session, held on June 27 and 28, welcomed 30 high school students from 12 Maine high schools, with participants traveling from as far east as Belfast to attend the two-day intensive program.
Hands-On Dental Training at the Oral Health Center
One of the camp’s standout components takes place at UNE’s College of Dental Medicine Oral Health Center. Here, high school students don the full protective gear of dental professionals—gowns, goggles, masks, and gloves—and work with UNE-created dental models to practice actual clinical procedures.
Under the guidance of UNE faculty and student mentors, camp participants learn to apply dental fluoride, place dental sealants, and prepare and restore teeth using simulation equipment. This is not a passive observation experience; students actively perform the techniques themselves, gaining a realistic understanding of what dental work entails.
Dean Nicole Kimmes of the UNE College of Dental Medicine, who personally participated in the 2026 camp, emphasized the transformative potential of this early exposure. When students can see, touch, and practice the skills involved in a profession, abstract career concepts become concrete possibilities.
Learning from Current Healthcare Students
A distinctive feature of the UNE exploration camp is the heavy involvement of current UNE students as mentors. These near-peer relationships provide camp participants with relatable role models who can speak authentically about the journey from high school to healthcare professional.
Georgia Sommer, a fourth-year dental student at UNE’s College of Dental Medicine, shared her personal story with camp attendees. Sommer, who grew up in Portland, Maine, knew she wanted to work in healthcare but did not settle on dentistry until age 15, when she finally saw a woman dentist for the first time. Her orthodontist became the inspiration that shaped her career trajectory—a powerful example of why representation matters in healthcare professions.
Third-year dental student Emily Holmes also connected with the high schoolers, sharing a memorable experience from her own path to dentistry. While shadowing a dentist as a high school student, Holmes witnessed a patient with diabetes receive new dentures. The transformation in that patient’s confidence and outlook on life demonstrated the profound impact dental professionals can have beyond clinical outcomes.
“People who are not confident and not healthy due to issues with their teeth come in and then something you can do for them changes their life, their confidence level, and their health,” Holmes explained to the camp participants. These authentic accounts help high school students understand the human dimension of healthcare work that textbooks cannot convey.
The Maine AHEC Network: Building Sustainable Workforce Pipelines
The Health Careers Exploration Camp is coordinated by the Maine Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Network, a statewide healthcare workforce development initiative housed at UNE within the David Evans Shaw Institute of Public and Planetary Health. AHEC programs exist across the United States with a shared mission: to improve the supply, distribution, and quality of healthcare professionals, with particular attention to underserved communities.
Zoe Hull, M.P.H., director of the Maine AHEC Network, noted that the program has evolved significantly since its origins. What began in 2010 as a focused Dental Career Exploration camp has expanded to encompass a wide variety of health professions. Over its 16-year history, the camp has reached approximately 480 students, creating a growing network of Maine young people who have been introduced to healthcare career possibilities.
Removing Financial Barriers to Access
A critical element of the exploration camp’s design is its cost structure: the program is offered entirely free of charge to participating high school students. This decision reflects a deliberate strategy to ensure that financial circumstances do not prevent talented students from underserved areas accessing these opportunities.
For many families, the prospect of paying for specialized career exploration programs is simply not feasible, particularly in Maine’s economically challenged regions. By eliminating this barrier, UNE and the Maine AHEC Network ensure that the camp reaches students who might benefit most from the exposure and mentorship it provides.
UNE’s Role as Maine’s Premier Health Professions Educator
The University of New England occupies a unique position in Maine’s higher education landscape. As the state’s largest independent university, UNE is home to Maine’s only medical college and dental college, as well as the state’s sole physician assistant program and pharmacy school. This comprehensive health professions infrastructure makes UNE the natural hub for healthcare workforce development initiatives.
The exploration camp leverages these resources fully, giving high school students access to state-of-the-art facilities like the Oral Health Center and direct interaction with faculty from multiple health disciplines. Participants gain exposure not only to dentistry but to a broad spectrum of health careers, reflecting the interconnected nature of modern healthcare delivery.
Interprofessional Education Approach
UNE’s commitment to interprofessional education means that camp participants learn about healthcare as a collaborative enterprise rather than a collection of isolated specialties. This approach mirrors the reality of contemporary healthcare, where dentists, physicians, physician assistants, pharmacists, and other professionals work together to deliver patient-centered care.
By introducing high school students to this collaborative model early, the exploration camp helps them understand that healthcare careers offer multiple entry points and pathways. A student who initially feels drawn to dentistry might discover complementary interests in public health or primary care, expanding their vision of how they might contribute to Maine’s healthcare workforce.
Practical Advice for Maine Students Interested in Health Careers
For high school students considering healthcare careers, the UNE exploration camp offers several practical lessons that extend beyond the specific clinical skills practiced during the two-day program.
Seek Out Shadowing Opportunities Early
Both Sommer and Holmes emphasized the importance of shadowing experiences in confirming their career interests. High school students should actively pursue opportunities to observe healthcare professionals in their communities. Local dentists, physicians, and other providers often welcome interested students, and these experiences provide invaluable insights into the day-to-day realities of healthcare work.
Pay Attention to What Motivates You
Sommer’s story highlights the importance of understanding personal motivations. She chose dentistry specifically because she wanted to see instant results in her work and wanted to enter a field where women remain underrepresented. Identifying your own values—whether they relate to patient interaction, work-life balance, intellectual challenge, or community impact—can help narrow career options in the vast healthcare landscape.
Connect with Mentors and Programs
The exploration camp itself demonstrates the value of structured mentorship programs. Students should seek out similar opportunities through their schools, community organizations, and local healthcare institutions. Building relationships with professionals and current students in your field of interest provides ongoing guidance and support throughout the often-complex process of preparing for health professions education.
The Long-Term Impact of Early Healthcare Exposure
While the immediate goal of the UNE Health Careers Exploration Camp is to introduce high school students to healthcare career possibilities, the program’s long-term aspirations are far more ambitious. By reaching students from underserved areas and providing meaningful exposure to health professions, the camp aims to influence the composition and distribution of Maine’s future healthcare workforce.
Students who grow up in rural and underserved Maine communities are statistically more likely to return to practice in similar areas after completing their education. Programs that nurture these students’ healthcare interests during high school can therefore have compounding effects, potentially addressing workforce shortages in the communities that need providers most.
The camp’s 16-year track record suggests this approach is working. Former participants have progressed through undergraduate education, health professions programs, and into clinical practice, contributing to Maine’s healthcare infrastructure in ways that might not have occurred without that early exposure.
How to Get Involved with UNE’s Health Careers Programs
Maine high school students, parents, and educators interested in the Health Careers Exploration Camp should connect with the Maine AHEC Network to learn about upcoming sessions and application processes. The program typically accepts applications in the spring for summer programming, and interested students are encouraged to express their interest early.
Beyond the exploration camp, UNE offers additional pathways for students considering health careers. The university’s pre-college experience programs provide further opportunities to engage with health professions education, and UNE’s undergraduate programs in medical biology, health sciences, and related fields offer direct routes to graduate-level health professions training.
For educators and community leaders, partnering with the Maine AHEC Network can help bring similar programming to your region or school. The network actively seeks to expand its reach and connect with students who might benefit from workforce development initiatives.
Conclusion: Investing in Maine’s Healthcare Future
The UNE Health Careers Exploration Camp represents a strategic investment in Maine’s healthcare infrastructure—one that recognizes that building a sustainable workforce requires starting early and reaching broadly. By providing free, hands-on healthcare education to high school students from underserved areas, UNE and the Maine AHEC Network are helping to ensure that the next generation of healthcare providers reflects the diversity and geographic distribution of the communities they will serve.
For the 30 students who participated in the 2026 camp, the experience offered more than just technical skills and career information. It provided proof that healthcare careers are attainable, that mentors are available, and that Maine’s healthcare institutions are invested in their success. In a state facing significant healthcare workforce challenges, that message may be exactly what the doctor ordered.
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