Mid-Carolina AHEC Celebrates 100 Percent Pass Rate for CNA Trainees

From left: Miyonta Mavins, Vanessa Harris, Margaret Christy,

Kyara Livingston, Daven Chiles, Tytiana Georges, Lauren Gillian,

Taylor Harden

This past summer, Mid-Carolina AHEC partnered with Westwood High School to offer graduating Health Careers Academy seniors the opportunity to take a Certified Nursing Assistant course. The course was taught at Westwood High School by Amanda Ashley, RN. The course is regulated by the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and has very specific curriculum and guidelines. There were eight students who participated in the two-week course that included 60 hours of classroom instruction and 40 hours of clinical instruction. Prior to beginning the course, these students completed coursework that included reading and answering all review questions from the textbook. Students learned objectives including safety, infection control, legal and ethical principles in healthcare, elderly care and a variety of nursing assistant skills.

Upon successful completion of the classroom curriculum, students received clinical experience at Rice Estate in Columbia. Rice Estate Director of Nursing Amanda Burgess facilitated the clinical portion of the class by allowing students access to the facility and residents. Students were able to practice the nursing assistant skills that they had learned in the classroom including feeding residents, taking vital signs, ambulating patients and much more. At the end of the course, students attended a mandatory review session with Ms. Ashley. Finally, students were able to take the South Carolina Certified Nursing Assistant Exam. The exam, given at Westwood High School, included a written test with 70 multiple choice questions and a skills exam where students had to accurately perform five skills in 30 minutes. Mid-Carolina AHEC is proud to report that all students passed the exam!

In the future, Mid-Carolina AHEC anticipates offering more CNA courses to students who meet certain requirements. Mid-Carolina AHEC would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to Ms. Ashley and Ms. Burgess for their willingness to teach the CNA class and provide students access to clinical experiences.

For more information, please contact Mid-Carolina AHEC HCP Coordinator Erica Davis at ericadavis@comporium.net.

Marchek Siblings Stay Connected With Upstate AHEC Through Academic Journey

A pair of siblings from Greer are giving back to current Upstate AHEC Health Careers students after completing the program themselves. Alex Marchek, MD is in his first year as a family medicine resident at Prisma Health Seneca. His younger sister by two years, Anna Marchek, is a second-year medical student at Edward Via College of Medicine (VCOM) Carolinas. “My mom likes to say she did good,” Anna joked. “Both of her kids are going to be doctors. She went two-for-two.” Anna (left) and Alex (right) Marchek are pictured with Nita Donald, Executive Director of Upstate AHEC. While Alex and Anna have both chosen to pursue medicine as a career, their interest in healthcare developed differently. Alex describes his discovery of health sciences as a slow realization. “It was definitely something that was on my radar really young,” said Alex. “My parents will say when I was six years old, I was talking about doing something in medicine. I had some really great science teachers in elementar...

Pee Dee AHEC Clinical Placements Help Students See Challenges – and Opportunities – of Rural Primary Care

Third-year medical student Omar Guerrero didn’t find his passion for a career in healthcare until he began shadowing health professionals as an undergraduate student. “I just knew that I really loved science and working with my hands,” said Guerrero, who double-majored in Public Health and Cellular & Molecular Biology while at the University of South Florida. It all clicked for him once he was able to observe physicians in their encounters with patients. “I saw there was a real need for Spanish-speaking physicians,” said Guerrero. “There’s a lot of disconnect between providers and Spanish-speaking patients and I thought that was definitely an area that I could make a difference in.” Now in his third year at A.T. Still University’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona, Guerrero is doing a clinical placement at Beaufort-Jasper-Hampton Comprehensive Health Services, Inc. in Richland. Guerrero was connected with Pee Dee AHEC and their Health Professions Student (HPS) program...

Maternal and Infant Health Module Sprout Available on AHEC Learning Portal

In an effort to help improve maternal and infant health outcomes in South Carolina, SC AHEC has developed a new educational module titled Sprout , which serves as a collection of information, tools and resources available in the state to support healthy mothers and babies. The module, created in partnership with the SC Office of Rural Health’s (SCORH) Family Solutions and March of Dimes of SC , can be found on the AHEC Learning Portal at www.scahec.net/learn/sprout . Sprout is an expansion from SC AHEC’s routine educational programming, as the module is targeted toward community members instead of health professionals. To make sure information is reaching all members of the public, the program simplifies or defines many terms that are used commonly in healthcare and is written in plain language that non-healthcare professionals can easily understand. “The goal is for any resident of South Carolina who is interested in supporting healthy moms and ...

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