BPS is set to receive an unprecedented $37.8 million grant to expand “cutting-edge training” opportunities at Edward M. Kennedy (EMK) Academy for Health Careers in partnership with Mass General Brigham, city officials announced on Wednesday morning.

“For nearly three decades, EMK has prepared Boston students for college and rewarding health careers,” said Mayor Michelle Wu at Massachusetts General Hospital. “And they have shown they’re ahead of the curve in understanding that our young people are ready, are eager, are prepared and are exactly who we need to step into the leadership roles to serve and care for our community. This collaboration will help take that incredible leadership and work to the next level.”

The historic grant was supplied by Bloomberg Philanthropies and will allow the school to double in size to 800 seats and expand college courses, work-based learning and career opportunities after graduation in partnership with Mass General Brigham.

EMK will also add three career pathways in surgery, medical imaging and biotech/medical lab science fields, in addition to the currently offered pathways in nursing and emergency services fields.

The program gives skilled students the opportunity to be “directly embedded” at Mass General Brigham and have on ramps to work their directly after high school if they choose, Wu said.

EMK School Leader Caren Walker Gregory noted the 800 seats will be added over the next five years in grades 9-12 and grades 7 and 8 will be added later into the expansion.

Younger high schoolers will have opportunities like hospital visits, job shadowing, and participation in simulation labs, Gregory said, while by grade 11 students will be put in twice weekly clinical practice according to their pathway and have access to opportunities like paid internships.

Wu said the goal is to spark a “national revolution” in opportunities for young students to be embedded with large employers and anchor institutions.

Mass General CEO Anne Klibanski spoke to the importance of programs like this in recruiting a “diverse culturally competent workforce” and at a time when hospitals across the country have “significant labor shortages that we have never seen before.”

The hospital — Massachusetts largest private employer — has 84,000 employees, Klibanski said, and 2,000 vacancies in positions including nurses, physician assistants and surgical technicians.

The grant is part of a $250 million initiative by Bloomberg Philanthropies to build partnerships between healthcare and schools and create new health career high schools in 10 communities across the country.

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Wu came back to the podium and spoke personally at the end of the conference, sharing her own experience with the hospital staff and remembering knocking on the door of a chronically-absent student who wanted to be a nurse and seeing her excitement learning about the EMK school.

“We know that she’s going to change lives and save lives,” said Wu. “I’m sitting here in this seat and remembering back to the first time I was at Mass General.”

The mayor recalled the “terrified” feeling of getting to the hospital late into the night after a crisis before her mother was diagnosed with late-onset schizophrenia, having her mother treated and being made to slowly feel her family belonged.

“Here we were in this large institution and having dealt with the police, having arrived here in the midst of just such fear and anxiety, and this is the institution that saved her life,” said Wu. … “So to know now the young woman we were in the doorway of is going to be there to receive those families coming in through the emergency room, that you’re gonna be there to welcome babies into the world, that’s going to mean the whole world for all of our families. And we’re so thankful to everyone, and it’s way more than the numbers.”