In today’s rapidly evolving health care landscape, the need for skilled, compassionate health care professionals has never been greater. To meet this need, BJC HealthCare implements proven workforce pathway programs that support economic mobility, like the BESt Healthcare Institute, to explore careers in health care as early as high school.
The BESt Healthcare Institute is a four week summer program through BJC that exposes, educates, and prepares high school students for future health care careers. The program is provided at no cost to students thanks to the generosity of individual and corporate donors through The Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital, ensuring that students from all backgrounds can benefit from the program’s invaluable resources and mentorship opportunities.
“We are proud that programs like BESt lay the foundation for students to have paths to meaningful careers in health care—careers that improve the lives of patients, strengthen communities, and offer pathways to personal and professional growth in an in-demand field,” says Steven Player, vice president of Belonging and Inclusion for BJC Health System. “Through hands-on learning opportunities, students experience firsthand how learning things like CPR, medical terminology, or professional development builds confidence and readies them for success in real-world settings.”
For nearly 20 years, BESt has sparked students’ interests in STEM and health care professions where there is a growing demand for high-quality providers. The program focuses on building academic skills through hands on learning and provides mentorship in personal branding, character, and leadership growth. Taking place on the Danforth campus of WashU, BESt provides high school students with opportunities to interact with health care professionals in a college environment.
Following the Pathway to a Health Care Career
“Without BESt, I wouldn’t be where I am now,” says Devin Macklin, a 2019 program graduate.
When Devin entered the BESt program as a high school freshman at the suggestion of a family friend, he thought he wanted to become an engineer. After four summers of hands-on STEM learning and engagement from people in various medical professions through BESt, he knew a career in health care was right for him. Devin moved to New Orleans to attend Xavier University of Louisiana, a prestigious school he knew to be one of the best schools for students pursuing medical degrees.
Then, one call brought Devin back home to St. Louis and BJC.
“The summer of my junior year at Xavier, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do when I got a call from Misha Hart,” Devin says. Misha is a program manager with BJC HealthCare and supports BESt in her role. “Misha told me about an opportunity to be a pharmacy intern at Christian Hospital. She said I could use it as a networking experience and to get clinical experience.”
Devin did just that.
The more Devin networked at BJC and learned about the various health care career pathways, the more he discovered his passion for anesthesiology. After graduating from Xavier, he went on to participate in the Accessible Summer Research (ASSURE) Fellowship at WashU Medicine and later worked as a research technician at the Center for Clinical Pharmacology where he assisted in investigating novel migraine therapeutics.
During this time, Devin also leveraged the network he’d built at BJC. He shadowed several of his former colleagues, including a graduate of Barnes-Jewish College Goldfarb School of Nursing. She highly recommended Goldfarb’s Nurse Anesthesia Program, which is ranked 11th in the nation. Devin became excited about the opportunity to work directly with patients as a nurse, and when he received a Full-Ride Scholars award to attend Goldfarb, everything fell into place.
“Knowing Goldfarb has a particular standard they hold everyone to is something that appeals to me,” Devin says. “I get to really learn how to not only interact with patients but also how to have the best patient outcomes. If I can become the best nurse I can, I can further impact my community and build on the experience.”
Devin will graduate in April 2026 with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree and hopes to work in an intensive care unit at a BJC hospital after graduation. So close to achieving his goal of becoming a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, he still points back to his time as a BESt student for putting him on this trajectory, and he credits those strong connections for bringing him back to BJC and St. Louis.
“If it wasn’t for Misha, I probably wouldn’t be at Goldfarb right now,” he says. “She was the reason why I was at Christian Hospital where a lot of my job shadowing came from. If she hadn’t sent me additional emails just checking in on me, I wouldn’t have known about those programs.”
A Long-Term Impact
BESt graduates are the passionate health care providers our community critically needs. Each year, over 75 high school students like Devin graduate from the program. BESt participants have a 100% college acceptance rate, and 87% go on to pursue a degree in health care. Upon program completion, graduates also receive a stipend to help them take the next steps toward a high-quality career.
“It is certainly an amazing privilege to be a small part of these exemplary students’ journeys and development by helping to connect them with opportunities,” Misha says. “Thanks to generous donor support, we’re creating meaningful pathways to future careers in health care and playing a proactive role in developing health care leaders.”
Donor support for BESt through the Foundation ensures the next generation of health care providers has the knowledge, compassion, and skills necessary to tackle today’s complex medical challenges to better support BJC patients and the broader community—an investment that benefits everyone.
Written by Sarah Cowart
Photography by Gara Elizabeth Lacy