BATON ROUGE — A partnership between Baton Rouge General and a local school is aiming to encourage the next generation of medical professionals.

Baton Rouge General employees welcomed Park Medical Academy students to the hospital Wednesday for a day of learning. They will have more students visit on Thursday as well.

The students visit as part of a partnership between the hospital and the school, which was formed in 2022.

One of the main goals of the partnership is to ensure the training and preparedness of the next generation of medical professionals and to help with Louisiana's aging population as the years go on.

"Adults are aging quicker, and so the goal is really to get them care as much as soon and as fast as possibly can. So working with the students hopefully creates that pipeline is what we're looking to do," Baton Rouge General Communications Director Lauren Hebert-Henderson said.

Park Medical is the first school in the East Baton Rouge Parish school system to be a medical focus-choice school for Baton Rouge General. This allows the students from preschool to 8th grade to gain early healthcare exposure.

"It's its own school. So we've incorporated and worked with their staff to infuse their curriculum with medical jargon and medical knowledge so that way, once they finish middle school they can go to the capital high school that we work with," Hebert-Henderson said.

Wednesday morning was set up for 6th through 8th graders. The hospital had activities to help them learn about the digestive system, to match up with what they were learning in the classroom.

The hospital hopes by that by the end of the sessions, the students leave with a greater urge to become the next generation of medical professionals.

"I've been enjoying it very much. It has pushed me to want to work towards my goal to want to be a doctor and I've learned new things and seen new and very innovative technologies," student Dedric Wallace said.

Once the students head off to high school, their work with Baton Rouge General won't end.

"Take them all the way through high school, so that way they can at least end high school with some kind of certification or a certificate that opens them up not only to our school of radiology or our school of nursing but to other career fields that they can do within the hospital," Hebert-Henderson said.

Healthcare experts say that by the year 2030, Louisiana will have the nation's third-largest shortage of physicians, behind Mississippi and New Mexico.