CTEC Healthcare Showcases Program
Kayla Hoffman performing CPR on a simulator.
Philip Alfano, superintendent of Patterson USD, and Hope Cruit, assistant principal of Patterson High School, were part of the group that came to see the showcase of the program.
On March 22, principals and supervisors gathered at the CTEC building in Jan Ashley’s classroom to get a closer look at the Paxton Patterson program used in our CTEC healthcare classes. Marianne Bland came in as a representative of the program and demonstrated the benefits of having this program in a high school. Taft High is the “only school in Kern County to have this class,” says Jan Ashley, the healthcare teacher. This is the second school year that the healthcare class has been a part of Taft High, and the number of students joining the class continues to increase.
Jan Ashley, CTEC instructor, explains the different aspects of the program inside the classroom.
The program itself exposes students to the variety of careers that are in the medical field. While in the modules, “The students will be able to see if they can handle drawing blood and the hands-on stuff when they use the silicone arm that has realistic features like veins and arteries that you draw the fake blood from. If they don’t like that kind of stuff, there are so many other options and this program really opens their eyes to that,” said Marianne Bland, an education consultant from Paxton Patterson. The point of the meeting today was to show other districts that “We have this really cool program that offers so many important skills to students,” claimed Ashley.
Dr. Blanca Cavazos, superintendent, speaks with Blake Johnson, Taft High student, about the program.
The meeting overall was really informative. The observing advisors and principals interacted with students who were working on their modules. Each module has two hands-on activities that students get to independently work on, two writings, and two checkpoint tests. Every module displays a different kind of occupation that the medical field has to offer. For instance, one module is titled “Nursing” and, for the activities, students get to draw blood from a silicone arm and get to practice sutures on a silicone leg.
Diane Paeza from Kern Community College District asking student Alana Iotamo questions about her module.
Another module is called “Health Information Management” and, in that module, students code information that is gathered about a patient and put it into the computer system. There are “so many useful things that this class is teaching these kids. Like coding, that is such a useful skill to have and will take you far in the medical field,” said Jerry Starr, Executive Director from West Side Health Care. The Paxton Patterson Program has a lot to offer to students and may be coming to other high schools as well.
