HSHS Connect: Find Your People. Grow Your Network. Serve Together.

One of the unique things about the AMU/APU Health Sciences Honor Society is just how geographically diverse our membership is. We are students, alumni, healthcare professionals, military service members, veterans, educators, administrators, and emerging professionals living and working in communities across the United States and around the world. That diversity gives our Honor Society an incredible reach, but being part of an online university also means we do not always realize how close we may actually be to one another.

Somewhere nearby, there may be another HSHS member working in a field you hope to enter. There may be someone who has already completed the graduate program you are considering, transitioned from military medicine into civilian healthcare, or navigated a professional challenge you are currently facing. There may also be several members in the same community who would gladly spend a Saturday volunteering together if they only knew one another existed.

The challenge is finding one another.

That challenge became the idea behind HSHS Connect, a new geographic networking platform we have developed within the Health Sciences Honor Society Online Community. Connect is designed to help our members discover one another, develop meaningful professional relationships, participate in mentorship, and eventually turn some of those connections into service within the communities where we live and work.

The map may be the most visible part of Connect, but the map is not really the point. The relationships and opportunities it can help create are.

Our Honor Society does not have a traditional campus where members regularly encounter one another between classes, attend events in the same building, or meet through campus organizations. We have to create those opportunities differently.

Connect gives participating members a way to see the broader geographic footprint of our Honor Society through an interactive map organized around general cities and metropolitan areas. Members who choose to participate can create a Connect profile, identify the types of connections they are interested in making, and explore other participating members.

This could be as simple as discovering another HSHS member in your area and starting a conversation. It could also become something much more significant. Someone studying healthcare administration might connect with an experienced healthcare leader. A nursing or health sciences student could meet someone already working in a specialty they are considering. A military member preparing to leave active service might find another member who understands both military medicine and the transition into civilian healthcare.

Those connections do not necessarily need to begin with a formal program or commitment. Sometimes mentorship begins with one question. Professional relationships can begin with one conversation. Someone saying, "I have been where you are. Here is what I learned," can sometimes provide exactly the perspective another person needs.


Our membership represents many different areas of the health sciences, and that creates opportunities for connections that may extend beyond our own disciplines as well. Nurses, public health professionals, healthcare administrators, educators, researchers, emergency medical professionals, behavioral health specialists, military healthcare professionals, and others all approach healthcare from different perspectives. Connect gives us another way to bring those perspectives together.

Mentorship has become one of the most important parts of our vision for Connect. Members can indicate whether they are interested in seeking mentorship, offering mentorship, or both, allowing the platform to serve members at very different stages of their professional and academic journeys.

For someone early in their career, that may mean finding a person willing to answer questions about a profession, graduate program, certification, or leadership path. For an experienced member, it may mean having an opportunity to give something back by sharing lessons learned over years of education and professional practice. For others, mentorship may develop naturally after making a professional connection through the platform.

I also think there is significant potential for mentorship surrounding career transitions. Our Honor Society includes military members and veterans, for example, and the transition from military healthcare into civilian practice can involve questions about education, credentials, employment, leadership, and professional identity. Connecting someone preparing for that transition with a member who has already experienced it could be tremendously valuable.

The same principle applies throughout the health sciences. We already have an enormous amount of experience represented within HSHS. Connect gives us a new way to make that experience accessible to one another.

As Connect developed, another possibility became increasingly important to me: volunteerism and community service.

Our geographic separation is usually discussed as one of the challenges of being an online organization. Connect gives us an opportunity to look at it differently. Instead of having members concentrated around one physical university campus, HSHS has members living in communities throughout the country and around the world. That means the potential reach of our service is equally broad.

Imagine several members discovering through Connect that they live in the same metropolitan area. One finds a volunteer opportunity with a local nonprofit and shares it with the others. A few decide to participate together. What started as a geographic connection through an online Honor Society suddenly becomes several HSHS members working side-by-side in their own community.

Those opportunities could look very different depending on where our members live. They might include community health education, food or supply drives, blood drives, veterans' organizations, charitable events, nonprofit programs, community cleanups, or other local needs. The goal is not to dictate one type of service from a central location. It is to give members another way to find opportunities and, when possible, find other HSHS members who want to serve alongside them.

As this part of Connect grows, the platform can support active volunteer opportunities and provide a way to recognize verified service participation. Over time, I would love to see small local networks begin to form naturally in areas where we have multiple active members.

Building a geographic networking platform also meant that privacy and safety could not be afterthoughts. If we are going to encourage members to find one another, participate in mentorship, volunteer together, and potentially meet other members in person, we have a responsibility to think carefully about how those interactions begin.

Participation in Connect is completely voluntary. Members choose whether they want to participate, what types of connections they are interested in, and how they want to engage with the platform. Connect is also intentionally designed around general city and metropolitan-area geography rather than precise personal locations. The purpose of the map is to help someone recognize that other members may be in their broader area—not to identify someone's home, workplace, or live location.

We also incorporated dedicated safety guidance directly into Connect. Members have access to information about protecting personal information, maintaining appropriate boundaries, communicating safely, and using good judgment when an online professional connection may lead to an in-person meeting or volunteer activity.

Just as importantly, Connect includes a reporting system. Members have a mechanism to bring inappropriate behavior, suspicious activity, safety concerns, or other problems involving Connect interactions to the attention of HSHS leadership. We want to encourage our members to make connections, but those connections should take place within an environment that values professionalism, privacy, respect, and personal safety.

Although Connect began with the concept of geographic networking, it has grown into several interconnected tools. Members can explore the geographic community, maintain their own Connect profile, find potential connections, participate in mentorship, manage requests, explore volunteer opportunities, and access safety resources from within the same platform.


The individual features are useful, but I think it is important not to lose sight of why we built them. Connect is not intended to become another social media platform. We are not interested in measuring its success by how many connections someone accumulates or how many dots appear on a map.

The question is whether those connections actually create value.

Connect is still at the beginning of its story, and I think that is one of the most exciting things about it. A network like this becomes more valuable as people choose to participate, and many of its best uses may be things we have not considered yet.

A city with one participating member today may eventually have five, ten, or more. A member looking for a mentor may find someone whose career closely resembles the one they hope to build. Someone may discover that another HSHS member works in the same healthcare system or lives near the same military installation. A volunteer opportunity shared by one member may bring together several people who had no idea they were part of the same local HSHS community.

Over time, perhaps members in one city will organize an annual service activity. Members near a military installation may develop an informal network for helping others navigate military-to-civilian healthcare transitions. Members elsewhere might participate together in community health initiatives, charitable events, or local outreach. Professional connections could develop into mentorships, collaborations, friendships, or opportunities none of us could have planned in advance.

That is ultimately the vision behind Connect. We can build the infrastructure, establish safeguards, and create the tools, but our members will determine what those tools become.

The Health Sciences Honor Society recognizes academic achievement, but I continue to believe that membership should be capable of becoming something more than recognition alone. Our motto, Learn. Lead. Serve., provides a useful way to think about where Connect fits within the future of our organization.


The technology itself is only a tool. The map is only a map until someone uses it to find another person. A mentorship system only matters if someone is willing to offer guidance. A volunteer opportunity only matters if someone decides to serve.

The value of Connect will ultimately be measured by what our members choose to do with it.

Did someone find a mentor who helped them make an important career decision? Did an experienced member have an opportunity to help someone following the same path? Did two members discover they lived in the same community? Did a professional connection lead to a new opportunity? Did several members come together to serve a local organization?


Our members are already spread across communities throughout the United States and around the world. Connect gives us another way to turn that geographic reach into something meaningful.