Allied Health

Allied Health Occupations is a vocational course designed to introduce students to the various careers available in the health care field. The student will learn basic skills found in the health field. All students earn a Health Care Provider CPR card. Basic first aid is also taught. Allied Health will allow a student to explore health careers by research and by observation.

Allied Health I is open to any student in the 10-12th grades. First year students learn caregiving skills such as transferring & moving, positioning, bedbaths, feeding, and skin care for patients. Taking temperatures, counting pulse and respirations, and learning to take blood pressures readings are required. Learning to make a "hospital" bed with and without a patient in bed is also taught. The student taking Allied Health I has the option to use this course as an elective or a science. Anatomy and physiology with an emphasis on diseases for each body system is covered. Basic medical terminology, medical ethics, professionalism and on overview of the different health care systems are some of the first subjects presented to the students.

Allied Health II is geared to the specific careers. The second year students learn basic skills related to different areas in the health care field. For example, while studying therapeutic health careers, the students instruct a volunteer how to walk using crutches, a cane and a walker. Correct use of moist heat and cold packs are learned. Basic range of motion exercises are performed. Direct health care, emergency health care, administrative health care, diagnostic health care, social services are a few of the different areas the students explore. Second year students go to Trace Regional Hospital for "shadowing." During class time the students rotate through 15 different departments and follow a worker. This allows the student to observe firsthand what a RN, CNA, RT, X-Ray Tech, Pharmacist, etc. actually do when they are working. We also visit area health care businesses. Allied Health II is an elective course for high school students.