Asbury Park High School students are (from left) Oneid’Harley Alexandre, Ariadne Garcia, Laysha Cajero, Jacqueline Olivera–Montes and Graciela Martinez-Osorio with instructor Sara Gogan.
Asbury Park High School has several academies – Allied Health, Dream, Engineering and Law and Public Safety — designed to prepare its students to be college and career ready. This year, the Allied Health Academy had a particularly successful year with several of its students earning their NHA Patient Care Technician License before graduating high school.
“I’m deeply grateful for the chance to impact my students’ lives,” said Allied Health Academy instructor Sara Gogan. “I’m glad I brought this program to them, for they represent our next generation of healthcare professionals.”
To earn the license, students must pass a test that includes a variety of questions from five main heath care topics including patient care, compliance, safety, and professional responsibility, infection control, phlebotomy, and EKG. The students earning the certification are: Peter Altidor, Oneid’Harley Alexandre, Ariadne Garcia, Laysha Cajero, Jacqueline Olivera–Montes and Graciela Martinez-Osorio, who earned a perfect score.
Gogan is particularly proud of the program’s success because she started her career in the Asbury Park School District as a school nurse. She later decided to transition to the classroom.
“Since my transition from nursing, my appreciation for the teaching profession has grown into a desire to pursue a purpose bigger than simply being a teacher,” she said. “It makes me so happy to see my students excel. It shows them that they are indeed born to win; and therefore, they must learn to plan for success, prepare for success and expect to succeed in all that they set their minds to.”
Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals rely on patient care technicians to assist with the critical day-to-day care some patients require. They provide hands-on assistance to serve patients’ basic needs, which greatly impacts the lives of their patients and their patients’ families. The starting salary for these positions is typically $22 per hour or more, plus health benefits.
In addition to the PCT license, several of the students also possess the OSHA 10-Hour wallet card from the OSHA Training Institute and the HeartCode® Basic Life Support training for their clinical duties.
Altidor will be attending Jersey City University on a full, four-year scholarship; Alexandre and Cajero have been accepted in the Nursing Program at Georgian Court University while Garcia and Olivera-Montes are still in the application process. Martinez-Osorio will be working full time as a Patient Care Technician at Jersey Shore University Medical Center. After a year, the hospital will assist with the cost of nursing school.
