Voted as the most professional chapter out of a 107 schools during the Health Occupations Students Association Competition held in Sacramento last month, Diamond Bar High School’s HOSA took another step forward in the club’s growing success.

President and founder, junior Crystal Chang, who competed in the pathophysiology category, placed second and qualified for Nationals, which will take place in Anaheim in June. Also qualifying in the top 10 in California were juniors Dawn Sul, for Dental Science, Thomas Liu, for Extemporaneous Writing, and Michelle Su, for Pharmacology. Juniors Lauren Ong, Su, Sul and Margaret Wang placed fifth as well in HOSA Bowl and were placed as alternates for Nationals.

The HOSA Competition tested and challenged the participants’ knowledge in specific medical fields. The event offered various medical categories for students to compete in such as pharmacology and dental science. Participants first took a written test based on their respective field of knowledge and once passed, they moved on to the second level test, which varied depending on the category. Team events such as CPR and HOSA Bowl—a jeopardy style game that asks questions about HOSA’s history, general medicine, and more—were also held during the competition.

Because DBHS’ HOSA chapter, advised by teachers Chase Paulson and Teresa Hebert, is in its first year of competition, the school only had 11 students participate in this event compared to other schools that sent on average 20 to 40 students.

In the future, Chang hopes to have the chapter compete in more events and plans to offer more opportunities for students to participate in. Her goal is to attract even more members to join HOSA and visit colleges along with medical centers for the remainder of the year. Chang is also hoping to offer more opportunities for the members to learn hands-on health procedures by getting certification classes started up.

“In the long run, my broad goal is for HOSA to continue to thrive even after I graduate. It’s all very tentative right now, but I think with our success this year, it’ll be easy to attract even more members,” Chang said.