Future Health Professionals (HOSA) held a virtual ceremony Wednesday night, the Grand Awards Session for the Area 3 Conference, where competitors found out their area competition results and celebrated their hard work and dedication.

“[Wednesday’s] virtual ceremony was to award and acknowledge the advancing competitors who participated in each event,” HOSA treasurer, senior Sufiyan Sabir said. “The ceremony listed the top 5 competitors for each event and the top 3 are selected to attend the State Conference. The ceremony also marks a transfer in leadership from last year’s area officer team to the new one that was elected not too long ago.”

Texas HOSA looks a little different this year because of COVID restrictions and having to switch to a virtual format, however, HOSA co-president senior Sarah Ahmed thinks they have adjusted well.

“HOSA has been doing well. At the state level, Texas HOSA has adapted pretty quickly to the pandemic and made everything virtual. They have given their regional officers training on how to assist local chapter officers through this very different year,” Ahmed said. “At the local chapter level, we’re still adapting. Virtual meetings are going well, but finding opportunities for members is posing to be a difficult task.”

Sabir found the virtual format of competing to actually be less stressful.

“The competition this year was in the form of an online test or submission. It allowed for students to really refine and prepare for their events as they had more time and less stress this year,” Sabir said. “For me personally, taking the exam at home allowed me to be comfortable as I am extremely used to taking tests at home now.”

HOSA president senior Tom Punnen was satisfied with their results.

“I was very happy and proud to see several competitors from Liberty HOSA advance to the state conference!” Punnen said.

Along with monthly meetings, HOSA is now preparing for the state competition March 23-26.

“HOSA has continued to thrive in our school, as we hold monthly meetings and events for our members. We had a large turnout for the area competition, and this year has been successful thus far,” Punnen said. “For state, I plan on studying for my exam by looking through reference material in the weeks leading up to the conference.”

Results

Sufiyan Sabir (senior)- 1st place in Nursing Assisting

Seoyeon Chung (junior)- 1st place in Prepared Speaking

Iniya Anandan (junior)- 1st place in Extemporaneous Writing

Karen Ryu (junior)- 1st place in Medical Terminology

Shiori Harima (junior)- 1st place in Biomedical Laboratory Science

Manisha Woodruff (senior)- 2nd place in Nursing Assisting

Praneeth Akkineni (junior)- 2nd place in Medical Spelling

Panav Ladha (senior)/ Tamer Bsoul (senior)/ Sid Arora (junior)- 2nd place in Medical Innovation

Hamza Mustafa (freshman)- 3rd place in Medical Reading
Monisha L. Gopalakrishnan (sophomore)- 3rd place in Medical Terminology
Vishnu Vasudev (sophomore)- 3rd place in Biomedical Laboratory Science

Thara Rao (freshman)/ Loman Cho (freshman) / Siva Epuri (freshman) – 4th place in Creative Problem Solving
Sumedh Potla (junior) – 5th place in Sports Medicine

Umar Mustafa (sophomore)- 5th place in Medical Reading