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Health Careers Academy Highlight: Community Emergency Response Training


Upstate AHEC has partnered with Greenville County to provide a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Lab where Upstate AHEC Health Careers Academy (HCA) students learned about disaster preparedness for hazards in the county. Rachel Nafziger from the Greenville County CERT Program taught a lab on medical triage for mass casualty incidents where students were able to learn more about the types of victims in a disaster, the most effective response technique when a disaster occurs and basic triage techniques. With this new knowledge of response behavior, students participated in a triage activity and passed with 90 percent of lives saved. Upstate AHEC would like to recognize the Greenville County team’s commitment to the students’ experience: they will allow HCA students to participate in the complete eight week CERT program for free.

Upstate AHEC’s Health Careers Academy is an integrative program offered to high school students in the upstate region who aspire to become successful health care professionals. The program provides an array of shadowing opportunities, team building exercises, academic preparation, professional development and community-based learning. As a part of HCA, students have the chance to partake in lab experiences where they are exposed to interactive, hands-on activities related to STEM and health care.   

The students of the Health Careers Academy are dedicated, excited, and most importantly compassionate. Through our pipeline programs, we look forward to seeing each of them grow into competent, caring, and quality healthcare professionals. 

To learn more about Upstate AHEC’s Health Careers Academy, visit https://www.upstateahec.org/.

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