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Paramedic to RN offered at Clark State

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By Kelly Mori, Staff Writer 5:45 PM Tuesday, July 28, 2009

SPRINGFIELD — Clark State Community College has partnered with Good Samaritan Hospital and the Nursing Institute of West Central Ohio Miami Valley to offer a fast track program for paramedics wanting to become registered nurses.

The Paramedic to RN program will begin this fall at Clark State Greene Center campus in Beavercreek. The class, which has a maximum of 20 students, is already full, said Kathy Wilcox, Clark State’s dean of health and human services.

Good Samaritan approached Clark State because of what it saw as a need to fill two niches, Wilcox said.

The first was paramedics who wanted to become RNs without having to repeat many of the clinical classes they have already taken to become paramedics, she said. The second was hospitals’ need for nurses in the areas of emergency and intensive care.

“Paramedics already work in acute care settings, so it increases this specialized pool of (potential nurses),” Wilcox said.

“When paramedics are in the field they have to use a lot of critical thinking skills,” said Todd Haner, emergency department director at Good Samaritan. “They have to make judgement calls without any doctor around. (That’s) why they make good critical-care nurses.”

Good Samaritan hires paramedics as emergency technicians and is offering tuition reimbursement to those paramedics who take the nursing course, Haner said.

The class, which can reduce the clinical portion of the course from one year to one quarter, depending on prior training, has drawn students from Greenville, Dublin, Hamilton, Bellefontaine and Troy, Wilcox said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0347 or kmori@coxohio.com.