Naval Hospital Bremerton held a job fair on its quarterdeck last Friday to give interested corpsmen the chance to find
out what opportunities were available to them for medical specialization and advanced training.
The step from general duty corpsmen to a specialty field is a big career decision to make, and the fair was designed
to give “quad-zeroes” (named for the 0000 Navy enlistment classification code for general duty corpsmen) a chance
to learn about some specialty fields from the people who do those jobs every day.
“I’m a quad-zero myself and it’s sometimes hard to know what other people do,” said Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class
Paula Wisniewski, the hospital’s general surgery leading petty officer and coordinator of the job fair. “We may have an idea,
but it doesn’t always come from experience.”
Represented at the fair were displays and representatives from such fields as radiology, preventive medicine, urology and orthopedics.
The fair even boasted a display by the hospital’s master-at-arms as an opportunity for undesignated Sailors to learn about
another career field available at the hospital. Staff members were on hand from the hospital’s career counselor’s office to answer
questions about advanced training schools. 
Based on Wisniewski’s guidance, the presenters focused their displays on job descriptions and duty stations – telling the attendees not
only what the day-to-day job is like but where in the world it could take you.  Other than that guidance, though, presenters were left
to their own creativity as to how to display it.
The work-related props they incorporated in there displays helped draw in people who might only have heard of the career field by word
of mouth.
“We had one person come up and say ‘that’s a nice cast,” and we started talking,” said Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Roberto Garcia, the
Orthopedic Clinic’s leading petty officer who presented his specialty with models, splints and casts.
Other props included the master-at-arms representative’s police equipment and working police dog, while the Preventive Medicine reps
presented a slide show drawn from PrevMed Techs all over the world to give a view of the variety of work and locations that field involves.
“I think it’s important to show them what they can do,” said Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Ana Paula DeSouza, a preventive medicine technician
who was on-scene at the fair to present her field to interested corpsmen. 
Hospital Corpsmen 3rd Class Melissa Legette was one of those interested corpsmen, taking a tour of the presentations before zeroing in on
Preventive Medicine.
“I looked at X-Ray tech and Pharmacy, but PrevMed seemed like something that was totally different,” she said. Legette added that the fact
that PrevMed techs are stationed all over the world was a big draw to her to investigate that field.  Before the fair, her information about the
field was limited.
“I didn’t know exactly what they did,” she said, “but now it’s something I’m interested in and I’m still looking into it.”
Although this is the first such career fair that Wisniewski has organized at the hospital, she said her initial idea was to hold one every six months
or so, ensuring that new quad-zeroes would have a chance to learn about potential career fields directly rather than waiting for word of mouth.