SOUTH BEND — During the boys basketball season, Washington junior Brenden Reed sometimes walked into the Panthers’ locker room wearing scrubs. As part of South Bend Community School Corporation’s Medical & Allied Health Magnet program run out of Washington High School, Reed spends chunks of many school days off campus working as part of his Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) clinicals at Beacon Memorial Hospital.
One of Reed’s assistant coaches and teachers in the medical magnet, Will Jeffers, noticed Reed’s teammates would often ask about the scrubs.
Why was he wearing them? What even were they?
The Panthers were interested in Reed’s response, asking these questions out of genuine curiosity, not teasing. Through educating his teammates a bit about his life outside of his sport, Reed began to learn that he has two separate identities.
He’s an athlete, but he’s also an aspiring medical professional.
“I used to feel like that’s all there was to life — basketball and golf,” said Reed, who is also the captain of the school’s golf team. “It was just the same thing over and over again, but being in this program pushed me to want to do more with my life. It pushed me to try new things. I’ve learned that I’m a capable individual and this world has so much for me as long as I’m willing to take it.”
‘I want to be part of the change’
Reed said his interest in the medical magnet was sparked at a career day when he was in eighth grade. He was drawn toward the program after seeing how hands-on the learning was, and he has stuck with it all three years of high school so far.
Reed said it’s difficult sometimes for him to feel engaged when listening to a lecture in class, but Jeffers’ CNA class allows him to use his hands and offers constant visual aids to help students better understand the source material. Reed has applied many of the lessons learned to athletics, even changing the way he warms up before a basketball game or a golf meet.
He also believes some of the things he has learned in the courses have helped him become a better leader, like in his role as Washington’s Class of 2027 president.
The medical magnet provides students with a variety of career pathways, such as surgical technician courses, cancer research and more, but Reed has already secured a sports medicine internship with Beacon Health System for his senior year. Ever since Reed can remember, he has wanted to work in the medical field, taking inspiration from his mother, Brittany Leonard.
She used to work as a CNA but now works in the medical records department at Beacon. The two will work in the same building next academic year during Reed’s internship.
“Seeing her help people — the joy it gave her — it just made me want to do the same thing with my life,” Reed said. “It’s amazing; the joy you get from seeing someone else smile after you help them when they can’t help themselves. It can just fill you up with so much positivity.”
Reed may have been the only Panthers boys basketball player in the medical magnet this past season, but he is far from the only athlete involved. He’s also not the only student-athlete whose passion for the medical industry was sparked by a family member.
Samara Rouser, an Adams senior who won an IHSAA sectional title in the shot put last year for the Eagles track and field team, has been inspired by her mother, Kelly Rouser, who works as an EKG technician at Saint Joseph Health System. Samara’s preferred line of work after college is as an orthopedic Physical Assistant (PA), hoping to serve other athletes like she has been.
During her high school career, Rouser decided to step away from basketball and volleyball after undergoing surgeries to repair torn meniscuses in both knees. Rouser leaned on family, friends and medical professionals for advice, but she also consulted Jeffers, who told Rouser that the best path was the one that had what’s best for her in mind.
She wants to help future athletes feel confident enough in their identity to where they could make a similarly difficulty decision if need be.
“I feel like I could touch certain athletes’ hearts with my story; how I overcame my injuries and that mental block,” Rouser said. “It was very important to discover myself outside of sports.”
Evie Gehring, a Riley senior who competes in girls lacrosse, soccer and cheerleading, is working to become a Certified Clinical Medical Assistant (CCMA) in the medical magnet’s phlebotomy class. The first time she had to draw blood, Gehring thought about dropping from the program. Now, it’s something she does routinely.
The same was true when she learned part of being a CNA means sometimes having to help a patient clean up after themselves in the bathroom. However, after sticking with the program for multiple years, Gehring’s dream job is to serve on the United States Peace Corps as a trauma nurse and help third-world countries receive proper medical treatment.
“It was being able to realize that you’re bringing light to a situation that’s really dark,” Gehring said. “Walking into a patient’s room, they’re already super uncomfortable. They can’t help themselves. Making the patient feel like they’re doing it for themselves or that you’re helping them in a way that they’re not embarrassed was something that made me feel like this is all worth it in the end … I want to be part of the change.”
Paying it forward
Jeffers teaches his medical magnet classes in one of Washington’s former band rooms. Class size ranges from three to 20 on any given day. Posters, drawings and projects fill the walls from one end of the classroom to the other.
His passion for teaching and the medical field is evident, but pennants with Notre Dame, Cincinnati Bengals and New Orleans Pelicans logos hanging on the wall serve as a reminder of Jeffers’ love for sports.
Jeffers is a 2017 Adams graduate and played basketball at Saint Xavier University. He got his master’s degree in medical sciences and originally planned to attend medical school, but decided against it due to feeling burnt out.
Jeffers came back to his hometown and took a job teaching seventh grade science at Jackson Middle School. Shortly thereafter, Jeffers took an opening to be an assistant coach for the Panthers’ boys basketball team, also becoming a teacher in Washington’s medical magnet.
Now in his second academic year, Jeffers has noticed that his youth and athletic background have helped him better relate to many of his students who are also athletes, though not all of them are.
“If you think about it, athletes come in with a lot of the skills you need for patient care and clinical care settings,” Jeffers said. “They’re coming in with the discipline needed, the time management skills, being able to work as a team — all those things are able to translate from the field or court directly into a hospital setting.”
The program currently offers five pre-nursing CNA courses with about 20 students in each class, an exercise science course, a dentistry course that is held remotely out of Clay High School and a Project Lead the Way (PLTW) biomedical science four-year program that helps students who aren’t sure which line of work in the medical field they want to go into.
Once the new medical magnet wing at Washington is completed (construction is hoped to be finished by August 2026), the dentistry course will move from Clay to Washington and a few more classes will be added. Jeffers will teach new surgical technician and biomedical engineering courses.
Some of these courses, such as Jeffers’ current CNA class, help high school students earn medical certifications that many may not have the chance to until late in their college tenures or even post-college.
“It is a breath of fresh air coming in for South Bend,” Jeffers said. “We’re offering things to kids around the area that they’ve never had before. I graduated high school less than 10 years ago, and I never had opportunities like some of these kids have.”
Jeffers recalled a recent conversation he and his students had with some of the CNAs at Wellbrooke of South Bend, an assisted living facility on the North side of town. Many of the CNAs were former Washington students, instilling hope into Jeffers that the current generation of medical magnet students stay close to home, too.
“We want to send you to college — go learn, go do your thing — but, please, come back,” Jeffers said. “Come back and work in our nursing homes, work in our hospitals, because you’re home grown, we taught you here and you know what the community needs.”
Kyle Smedley is a sports reporter at the South Bend Tribune. Contact him via email at ksmedley@usatodayco.com or follow him on X @KyleMSmedley.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend high school athletes making an impact through medical magnet
Reporting by Kyle Smedley, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
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