ICA Update
CNA
– Courtesy of Jewish Senior Living Magazine/Alain McLaughlin
Vanessa Munoz takes Michelle Paz's pulse as she demonstrates her skill to instructor Arlene
Jech at the certified nursing assistant program.
High school students train as
certified nursing assistants
Monica Clark '61
SAN FRANCISCO – On a foggy
Saturday morning in the city’s Outer
Sunset district, Cassandra Raul, 16,
boarded the first of three buses that
would take her across town to the
Jewish Home of San Francisco. It
was 6:30 a.m. She had to arrive by
8 a.m. to join nine other juniors from
Immaculate Conception Academy
who also travel there each week for
their clinical practicum to become
certified nursing assistants.
The 10 students formed the
first cohort of the certified nursing
assistant program at the all-girls
Cristo Rey school. The program is not
part of the regular academic/workstudy curriculum that is required at
all Cristo Rey high schools. Rather, it
is an addendum offered to a select
group of students who have good
academic standing and keen interest
in becoming nurses or other health
care professionals.
16
Summer 2016
The program, launched in June
2014, is the brainchild of Jesuit Fr.
Timothy Godfrey, a registered nurse
and assistant professor in the School
of Nursing and Health Professions
at the University of San Francisco. A
second cohort of 12 girls is now in the
program and a third will begin forming
in February.
“I wanted to help those in our lowincome and minority communities to
prepare for careers in health care by
giving them opportunities while in
high school to develop the necessary
skills to succeed in college,” Godfrey
said.
With strong support and
encouragement from the
administration at the Jesuit-run
University of San Francisco, Godfrey
approached administrators at
Immaculate Conception Academy.
They were equally enthusiastic.
“It is such a wonderful opportunity
for our girls,” said Dominican Sr. Diane
Aruda, president of the school. “It
helps them clarify areas in the medical
field they want to pursue.”
With funding from an Immaculate
Conception alumna and the alum’s
husband, Godfrey hired Arlene
Jech, a retired nurse with years of
experience in both hospitals and
skilled nursing facilities.
Jech developed a curriculum that
would meet all the requirements
of the state licensing board and
prepared to resume certified nursing
assistant teaching, which she had
done at Rogue Community College in
Grants Pass, Ore.
For five weeks during the summer
of 2014, the first 10 students, including
Raul, spent four full days each week in
the Immaculate Conception Academy
science classroom, studying patients'
rights; the laws regarding certified
nursing assistants and their roles
and responsibilities; and anatomy,
physiology and nutrition.
Every Friday, they traveled to the
university’s nursing school simulation
lab to practice making beds, taking
vital signs, and learning how to feed,
bathe and move patients.
Raul described the lab as “Super
fun. I had never seen anything like
it before. There were hospital beds,
dummies, everything we needed to
be able to practice what we’d learned
from Ms. Jech.”
Some university nursing students
were on hand to serve as mentors
when needed.
Godfrey hosted the girls’ parents
at the University of San Francisco lab
so they could “see the campus and
envision what is possible for their
daughters.” Some of the parents, he
said, had never been on a university
campus.
After meeting the required 100
hours of instruction and practice, the
students were ready to take their
skills to the Jewish Home, selected
by Godfrey and Jech because of the