New Castle Career Center’s Health Science Education program strives to ensure students get the maximum benefit from their education. Students participating in this program experience a multitude of health-related instruction including human anatomy and physiology, medical terminology, CPR, and practical skills. Students leave this program ready to pursue a degree in a health care field with a few college credits under their belt.

Because of the practical benefits of Health Science program, the number of students applying continues to grow each year. For the 2019-20 school year, the class size has expanded by 20 more seats, now allowing 80 students to participate in the program. With more students attending, more resources will be needed to make the program helpful for each student.

New Castle Career Center instructors Angie Talbott and Lainey Millikan bundled a mini-grant from the East Indiana Area Health Education Center with donations from community funding partners to arrange for the purchase of a new Hill-Rom hospital bed. Soon after that bed arrived, the program heard more good news: Ivy Tech was giving them three additional Hill-Rom beds. All four of the new beds are more accurate to what students will experience in a hospital setting than the beds they had originally.

 “The new beds are so much quicker than the ones we currently are using, and their functionality is what we are most excited about,” noted Angie Talbott, Health Science Instructor. “The new Hill-Rom bed has degree markers on the sides, so students can see that they have the bed exactly where it needs to be. Additionally, having more beds will give them the opportunity to have more hands-on experience. Currently we have at least six students per bed during practical work, and now we can have less students per bed, making their time more useful.”

The students are enthusiastic about the experiences made possible by the additional beds. Class President Anna Shafer (Hagerstown High School) shared, “These beds will prep us for actual career-related experiences. I’m so excited to have more time to learn skills now that we will have less people per bed.” Her classmate Emily Adams (Knightstown High School) added, “I aided in putting together the old beds and it was so difficult. The bars underneath didn’t make a ton of sense, and I’m very excited to have new beds to learn with.”

Jeannie Hamblin-Fox, Henry County Site Director with Ivy Tech, was instrumental in the Career Center receiving the three beds from Ivy Tech. Henry Community Health recently donated 10 beds to Ivy Tech, which then gave Ivy Tech the ability to gift three to the Career Center. Fox is thankful for the opportunity to share the beds with the Center, referring to this exchange as the “circle of life” for a hospital bed.

For more information about the Health Science Education Program, visit https://nccareercenter.org/program/health-science-education/