HEALTHCARE TECHNOLOGY EDUCATORS
by Professor Alberto Vasquez
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Collaboration. Working at the hospital, it was clear to me that collaboration with the Director of Nursing, the Chief of Medicine, Respiratory Care, Risk Management, to name a few was crucial to the success of Clinical Engineering at the Texas Department of State Health Services. Transitioning to education, I would not have expected much difference. However, the BMET Program was and still is, located separately from the Health Professions and Nursing. To make matters more challenging, we are located in the classroom as far back in our building as possible. A question arose. Were BMETs being trained that, this was how it would be in healthcare?
Approaching Healthcare Educators: Having no clear expectation for working with other faculty, I needed to assess why we were not collaborating. My first contact with nursing was a bit alarming, funny and a relief. Two remarks come to mind, “We have a Biomed Program at this College?” and, “Where are you located?” The relief came when one particular nurse, who was designing our colleges Simulation center, said, “I know who the biomed where at my hospital, and this simulation center has to have a place for us to work together.” She sent her Simulation Lab tech to speak with me about pursuing the BMET degree so he could manage all the technology in the center.
Lucky: I presented this collaboration at an AAMI conference in San Antonio couple of years later. There was a lot of excitement in the room with other educators asking how they could do the same. Some did not have the nursing and health care programs that I had access to, so I realized how lucky I was to be at St. Philip’s College.
Continued progress. Since then, like any organization, visions and missions change, which have detracted the already in-progress plans, individual units are striving to achieve. However, the group only gets stronger. We now have more education programs involved in collaboration, to raise the standard of their individual programs to learn in a mass cooperative learning style environment.
Nursing instructor and student instructing BMETs on ECG acquisition
Second year and first year BMET student explaining basic troubleshooting.
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