{"id":1275,"date":"2017-02-20T16:20:39","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T16:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/?p=1275"},"modified":"2017-02-20T22:07:30","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T22:07:30","slug":"tstc-filling-nursing-needs-in-stephens-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/?p=1275","title":{"rendered":"TSTC Filling Nursing Needs in Stephens County"},"content":{"rendered":"

(BRECKENRIDGE) \u2013 Texas State Technical College is helping to keep quality medical care available in Stephens County.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe local Vocational Nursing program has been a tremendous asset to our field physicians in our hospitals, nursing homes and clinics,\u201d said Virgil Moore, executive director of the Breckenridge Economic Development Corporation and a member of The TSTC Foundation Board of Directors. \u201cIt definitely helps fill a gap, and we are fortunate in Breckenridge that we have something like that available. Most rural communities do not.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

TSTC\u2019s Breckenridge campus offers a certificate in Vocational Nursing and currently has 12 students in the program. Students take classes in basic nursing, pharmacology, medical terminology, medication administration and applied nursing skills. Some of the training is done on medical simulation dummies that can be programmed to mimic a range of health situations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe program covers a wide variety of skills,\u201d said Trisha Otts, interim director of the Vocational Nursing program in West Texas, but who will become permanent director at the end of February. \u201cWe get a lot of the students straight out of high school. The main hurdle is getting clear background checks from the Texas Board of Nursing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There were more than 70 full-time licensed vocational nurses in Stephens County as of September 2016, according to the most recent information from the Texas Board of Nursing. Most of the county\u2019s licensed vocational nurses worked in general practices, geriatrics, surgical areas and home health.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chris Curtis, practice administrator at Breckenridge Medical Center, which is owned by Stephens Memorial Hospital, said a majority of the nurses are TSTC graduates.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWithout the nursing program, we would really struggle to find nurses,\u201d Curtis said. \u201cTSTC is where they all come from. They do their clinical sessions at the clinic and the hospital, and this gives them an idea of what they want to do in their careers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The technical college is a tool Moore uses to attract new companies to the county.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFinding skilled labor is a big challenge,\u201d Moore said. \u201cThe smaller the area you are talking about, the more of a challenge it is. A lot of times we rely on basically a promise that we are going to supply you with a skilled workforce, and you tell us the skills you need and we can train the people locally to fill those jobs. It\u2019s worked out really well for us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Otts, a graduate of TSTC, said she envisions working with area school districts in the future to try to provide dual enrollment opportunities for high school students interested in nursing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Open House will be held at TSTC in Breckenridge from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 24. For more information, go to tstc.edu\/openhouse.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"J5D_2497<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(BRECKENRIDGE) \u2013 Texas State Technical College is helping to keep quality medical care available in Stephens County. \u201cThe local Vocational Nursing program has been a tremendous asset to our field physicians in our hospitals, nursing homes and clinics,\u201d said Virgil Moore, executive director of the Breckenridge Economic Development Corporation and a member of The TSTC […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breckenridge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1277,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1275\/revisions\/1277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}