Students giving medical assistance

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Student Ruby Zepeda connected a volunteer student to an EKG machine as she demonstrated her learned skills during the Liberty Career College Open House.

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Student Claudia Aguilera found her sister Irene a willing recipient for an intradermal injection of sterile water.

What kind of Open House would have you show up to get a needle stuck in your arm? The answer is an Open House where at-risk students in a Medical Assisting program got a chance to show parents, relatives and friends how much they had learned in four weeks of training. Such an event took place at Liberty Career College in Bakersfield on July 30. Ten students from the Kern County Superintendent of Schools’ Community Schools JobsPlus program were able to get this rare opportunity for introductory, hands-on medical care training thanks to the collaborative efforts of Liberty Career College and a JobsPlus federal grant.

Kind of a strange sight seeing people smiling and laughing while they are being poked for blood, prepped for an EKG, or given injections. The only serious, concerned looks were on the faces of those students doing the medical work. The recipients were relatives and friends who did not seem to mind being the objects for demonstration. One of those smiling eagerly was Geronima Ramos, as she awaited the needle in her son Alex’s hand.

“I’m really excited that Alex is taking this course,” Ramos said. “He is the first one in our family who is really interested in going into medicine.”

While the course will not put any of the high school students into the medical field immediately, it has sparked an interest in many.

“During these six weeks, the students have learned medical basics, such as running an EKG, taking vital signs, phlebotomy work and injections to earn a certificate of completion,” Said Carlos Salinas, Liberty Career College director/instructor. “Think of this class as job shadowing, where we take the mystery out of what is being done in a clinic or laboratory. If the students stay on track, they can go on to take the full 14 week course which culminates with them becoming a state certified medical assistant. Then, they can work in medical clinics and labs.”

After completing four weeks in the classroom at Liberty, the students receive externships to job shadow for two more weeks at local clinics and labs around Kern County. Student Ruby Zepeda was looking forward to that as she leaned over to extract blood from a willing patient.

“It is sometimes hard to find a vein, when you are trying to draw blood,” Zepeda said. “But, I want to graduate, go on to Bakersfield College and become a registered nurse. So, it’s real important now to learn some of the things that will be expected of me.”

This is no easy accomplishment for these students who thanks to community schools are being given a chance to stay in school, when for a variety of reasons they have become at risk of dropping out. Community schools offer a structured, non-traditional environment where students can work on returning to their own schools and ultimately graduate with their classes. Part of the non-traditional is a heavy emphasis on vocational training. And the federally-funded JobsPlus program pays businesses to provide training, while the students go to school.

“For this summer program, students had to be at least age 16, in good academic standing in school and referred by a community schools’ teacher,” Said Andrea Parsons, JobsPlus career technician. “We have had no dropouts in this particular vocational training field, and we are excited when we see our students following through and so committed.”

Perhaps the definition of committed was high school junior Claudia Aguilera. As she worked on her Open House patients, Aguilera kept an eye on the hallway, where her mother was babysitting nine-day-old Giselle. Aguilera entered the program thinking her baby would be born around Aug. 6. Instead she was delivered early, three weeks into the summer program. Amazingly, Aguilera missed just two days before coming back to class to finish what she had started.

“I thought I would finish before Giselle was born, but when she came early, I knew I had to complete the program for my daughter,” Aguilera said. “I want to make something of my life. I think it’s great that this program is helping students, and finding an opportunity like this would have been really hard without JobsPlus. I always wanted to be a nurse. This program has given me hope that I can become an RN someday.”

As Salinas supervised Aguilera’s work and that of her classmates, he smiled at what was taking place.

“The quality of students from the JobsPlus program is exceptional,” Salinas said. “They are very focused, very productive, ready to learn and easy to teach.”


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