Administrators of the University of Nebraska Medical and Wayne State
College have signed an agreement intended to boost the number of medical
technologists working in rural Nebraska.
The agreement now in operation is part of UNMCs Rural Health Opportunities
Program, which was founded in late 1991, and is similar to the agreement
signed during the 1991-92 academic year with Chadron State. Recruiting
rural students, who will then take all of their pre-professional education
at Wayne State and their UNMC professional education at other distance
learning sites, is invaluable to producing medical technologists who will
remain with their local communities after graduation.
Eighty-seven medical technology graduates have completed their entire
year of clinical education in one of UNMCs clinical affiliates serving
rural Nebraska. In fact, in the 2000 graduation class of 30 students,
the top two students were distance learners that never came to Omaha after
an initial day of orientation.
UNMCs medical technology program is a division of the School of Allied
Health Professions. Medical technologists, also known as clinical
laboratory scientists, are the behind the scenes detectives in the health
care industry. They are skilled scientists who perform the kinds
of tests that would confirm a case of diabetes, verify a potentially dangerous
drug level, monitor the level of anti-rejection drugs in transplant patients,
determine compatibility for organ donation, detect cases of cancer or leukemia,
identify the causative microorganism in a blood or wound infection, or
detect a cancerous tumor with DNA techniques.
This new agreement is a gain for UNMC, Wayne State and Nebraska, said
Karen Honeycutt, instructor, medical technology education and coordinator
of the medical technology Rural Health Education Program. There
is a national shortage of medical technologists that is as critical as
the nursing shortage, but doesnt get as much attention. Last year
there were 5,000 fewer graduates than available positions and these kinds
of numbers mean that Nebraska is going to have to work hard to grow our
own technologists.
The strongest factor in increasing rural option agreements is that
we have a very high return rate on our rural distance learning students.
So far, 97 percent of the rural students we educate, while they continue
to live in their communities, stay in rural communities after they graduate
from our program. This is our response to UNMCs mission of increasing
health professions in Nebraskas rural communities.
The target audience for the new agreement includes high school seniors
and science students from rural communities already attending Wayne State.
If a student signs an option agreement during his or her senior year of
high school or first years at Wayne State, maintains a 3.0 G.P.A and completes
a minimum of 90 credit hours at Wayne State the payoff is huge.
They have a guaranteed seat in medical technology education, even if there
are 200 other students competing for 30 slots. She said shes seen
a lot of growth in medical technology awareness in rural areas.
Jan Tompkins, medical technology educations rural program coordinator,
lives in Grand Island and has spent more than 10 years as a recruiter and
educator in rural Nebraska.
We have had recruited Wayne State graduates to our medical technology
program before and they did very well, Tompkins said.
Todd Young, Ph.D., Wayne State assistant professor of physics and astronomy,
is the new RHOP program director, and Doug Christensen, Ph.D., assistant
professor of biology, is the new medical technology major adviser.
They both are excited about the new agreement because it increases the
choices for students who attend Wayne State.
Students who enroll in our program will receive a hands-on educational
atmosphere that is a fraction of the cost of other universities, Dr. Christensen
said.
We all want the same thing, Dr. Young said. Give rural students
the most health science career choices possible, with nationally competitive
training that still enables those students to live locally. This
is the key to their staying here, practicing here and continuing to develop
and serve our rural communities.