Compass Cases
Find your direction in healthcare, one patient story at a time.
Compass Cases is a pre-health career exploration curriculum built around real patient stories. Start with one patient, follow their care through the whole system, and meet the many people whose work makes it possible.
Pick a patient below. The first three cases open on a clickable care map: start with the circle in the middle to meet the patient, then click the circles around them to meet everyone who took part in their care. Cases Four and Five are guided journeys that walk you through one recovery stop by stop; Case Five, our newest, reveals its road stage by stage as you go.
A college sophomore’s three-day red eye turns out to be anterior uveitis, and the first sign of an underlying autoimmune diagnosis. The case spans more than 30 careers across two years of care.
What looks like “just the flu” becomes a lesson in vaccines, early pregnancy, and the science and systems behind everyday care, told through a new cast of professionals.
A nine-year-old’s asthma attack, set off by wildfire smoke and extreme heat, reaches from his bedside all the way out to the climate scientists studying his city’s air.
A traumatic brain injury, a family finding its way in a second language, and the wide circle of people who help a young woman rebuild. Our first journey-format case: read her story, then walk her road stop by stop, from the paramedic to the peer mentor.
An 85-year-old widow falls in the night and breaks her hip, and two dozen people, from the 911 dispatcher to a contractor with a tape measure, help her fight her way back to her own kitchen table. Built around the 5 M’s of geriatrics, with a road that unlocks stage by stage and decisions to make at nearly every stop.
Turn the tables. Interview a real patient about their healthcare journey and build your own ecosystem map, just like the cases above. An animated, step-by-step guide walks you through the whole process, starting with consent.
A short animated film plus written steps: find a patient, get consent, hear their story, discover everyone who cared for them, and map it. Built for high school and college students.
Watch the guide →You have just met dozens of the people it takes to care for one patient. Which of those careers fits how you like to work, with people or with data, fast-paced or methodical, hands-on or behind the scenes? The Career Compass points the way.
Open the Career Compass → Reflect on your experience →The full written cases and the Career Compass guide are available to download and adapt. The interactive tools above can be linked directly or embedded.