December 2025
At Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, high school volunteers are getting hands-on experience while making invaluable career connections in the healthcare field.
For Isabella Heidel, 17, and Nico Cardona, 16, their afternoons are spent volunteering in the sterile processing unit at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center. While many teens may be on the field or working a part-time job, Isabel and Nico are head-to-toe in scrubs while helping sterilize medical equipment inside the hospital.
Nico, a junior, is considering a career in nursing. “Helping each other seems to be the most important within this hospital,” he says. “I’ve learned that being alert is key because you can spot when something is wrong. Also, there are never small jobs. Every job helps operations in the hospital to give patients the best experience.”
How they're helping
Under the guidance of supervisor Wade Wilson, Isabella and Nico help scan and store sterilized equipment sets and check for quality issues like broken locks or loose filter lids.“They are currently helping the person working the sterilizer to put away the cooled sterilized sets to the appropriate shelves and scan them in our system," Wade says.
Wade says the teens also provide extra eyes for quality control.
“They are essential,” Wade says. “And we love mentoring them. This job doesn’t always get recognition, but it’s vital to patient safety.”
Mentoring future caregivers
Even without the recognition, Nico and Isabella agree that the experience is more than a volunteer shift — it’s a foundation for their future.
“What surprised me is how everyone is on task, but community and communication is the biggest thing,” Nico says.
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