Interested in healthcare but not sure it's a good fit for you? Then consider enrolling in the healthcare core curriculum offered by Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC). The curriculum offers a basic knowledge of what's required of people working in healthcare, as well as an overview of healthcare careers at varying levels of preparation.
The curriculum includes:
- An overview of career opportunities.
- Roles of healthcare workers and requirements for licensure or credentialing.
- Behaviors needed for success.
- Effective communication skills.
- Respect for diversity of clients and staff.
- Awareness of client needs.
- Legal and ethical issues.
- Safety issues.
Meeting Student Needs
Completion of the curriculum is required for students in MCTC's dental office support, sterile instrument processing and community health worker programs. For other students, the curriculum is the first step toward careers in fields like phlebotomy, nursing, polysomnography, neurodiagnostics or Western herbalism.
According to Pat Reinhart, who coordinates and teaches in the program, the curriculum meets the needs of a wide variety of learners. Students range in age from 18 to 50 and come from diverse cultural backgrounds. They include recent high school graduates, career changers, displaced workers and individuals new to the United States.
Valuable Skills
All modules of the program include exercises in problem solving. Students are presented with common on-the-job situations: getting along with co-workers, communicating with patients of differing cultural backgrounds, resolving a conflict with a supervisor or maintaining confidentiality.
"By the time students finish, they know whether they want to go into healthcare," Reinhart says. "Even if they decide not to, they've learned skills that are valuable both personally and in any work setting. And those who do go into healthcare are well prepared for further study."
