RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany- Almost two dozen high school seniors from the Kaiserslautern Military Community volunteered on an early fall weekend to crouch together on rubber floor mats to perform cardio-pulmonary resuscitation using clinical dummies and video scenarios at Ramstein High School September 12 and 13.
In less than six months, the teenagers will be pulling shifts at nearby Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, said Kaiserslautern High School's teaching nurse, Jodie L. Richmond of North Pole Alaska.
They will be tasked with joining military and civilian LMRC staff to help treat live patients at the U.S. Military's biggest hospital in Europe.
The students are volunteers in an aggressive apprenticeship designed to forge and mature future medical talent in the skills necessary to license early as a Certified Nursing Assistant, said Ramstein High School's teaching nurse, Pamela K. George, a native of Auburn, Alabama.
The high school students here aim to earn professional CNA licensing through the State of North Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services, in tandem with the U.S. Department of Defense Education Activity. They must perform more than two years of theoretical classroom studies, work at least 40 hours of clinical duty at LMRC, and pass a written and practical test administered by examiners from the NCDHSR and DoDEA approving board, said Richmond.
"Actually, it's usually more than 56 practical hours with at least three 12-hour (hospital) shifts," she said. The CNA license from the program also transfers to at least 39 States.
Most of the candidates who complete the program have a decided advantage in pursuing future medical careers in both civilian and military sectors, Richmond said. They can also expect early promotions, she added.
For many of the students, a medical vocation is often a legacy of their own parent's clinical professions but the program is open to any candidate with the desire to help people and study hard, Richmond said.
"I'm training to save lives," says Atlanta N. Haynes a student of Kaiserslautern High School and a native of Layton City, Utah, she says her mother and sister both work in medicine.
For Ramstein High School Student Andrew S. Wilson, the certification is also about service and helping people.
"I can change people's lives," says Wilson, "it's kind of cool."
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