The Health Occupations course meets daily for a two-hour session. The curriculum includes basic nurse assistant skills, which allows students to be working members of the hospital community. The clinical experience offered to the students is the vital heart of the program. Role modeling, mentoring, and real work-place exposure have a profound effect upon students. Participation in a reality-based work experience affords students a solid picture of the satisfactions and strains of the health care field.
Students experience good and bad days as well as joy and grief.
They are also able to self-assess interests, aptitudes, and talents in the context of experiencing success and failure. By the end of the 3rd quarter, students have completed the training for and are eligible to take the state's Certified Nurse Assistant exam. During the last quarter of the school year, the students design their own experiences. It's an opportunity for students to narrow their focus and have an in-depth look at areas of health care that interest them the most. Students have spent time in surgery, medical records, physical therapy, emergency departments, day care centers, veterinary clinics, and wherever health care or health care related activities are conducted.