posted on March 26: Medical & health physics student named top co-op student in country

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Coopstudentaward.final.jpg”]She loves languages, science, art and physics. She describes herself as a people person.

Jodi Powers' diverse interests made choosing a field of study difficult. They made choosing a career even tougher.

So Powers opted for the co-operative education stream to give herself a chance to explore whether medical & health physics were the right areas for her to focus on.

Now, only weeks from completing a four-year degree, Powers, 24, is confident she's headed in the right direction.

She's been named the top co-op student for 2001 by the Canadian Association for Co-operative Education.

And she credits her co-op education experience with guiding her into her soon-to-be fulltime occupation as a radiation safety officer at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary.

Powers spent two eight-month work terms at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal and particularly impressed her colleagues by choosing to work in French even though her first language is English.

“I love languages,” she said at a reception held on campus last week to mark her accomplishments. “There isn't room to take languages as part of the curriculum so using it in co-op added to the richness of my experience.

“The co-op program was beneficial to me because I didn't have a good understanding of the types of jobs that are out there. I specifically chose a placement that was very diverse and I was involved in a department that let me get to four different hospitals.”

Partaking in the co-op program allowed Powers to attend conferences, write and present award-winning research papers and get involved in her field before graduation.

“I wondered if I could find a job that would satisfy me. I got into co-op and find out I could combine the science side of things and communication. One of the biggest challenges in the job is to have finely-tuned people skills to communicate the risks effectively. There aren't many people who like both sides of this.”

In addition to excelling in a rigorous academic program, Powers also volunteers lunch hours and weekends with cancer treatment patients, helps promote co-operative education to fellow students and pursues dance, snowboarding and the arts.

Beverley Wasmund, science co-operative education co-ordinator, nominated Powers for the national award. Thirty students were nominated from a pool of candidates of more than 70,000 students.

“Jodi's combination of technical knowledge and patient sensitivity reflects one of Jodi's greatest assets – her compassion and interest in furthering patient and practitioner knowledge about her chosen field,” said Wasmund.

This is the second time in eight years that a McMaster science co-operative education student has won this national award. David Landry from the biology & pharmacology co-op program received this award in 1997-98.

AWARD WINNER: (L-R)Kathy Verspagen, Canadian Association for Co-operative Education (CAFCE) national president; Stefan Kerry, CAFCE student awards committee director; Jodi Powers, Acting President Peter Sutherland.

Photo by Shelly Easton