TDDS opens School of Allied Health
MINERAL RIDGE — A new school dedicated to helping prepare State-Tested Nurse Aides for work in the health care field will open here Wednesday.
The TDDS School of Allied Health is located on Main Street and officials will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. Wednesday. The school is now enrolling students in its approved State-Tested Nurse Aide (STNA) training program.
STNAs are the primary care givers to residents in local nursing homes, assisted-living residences, many hospitals and home health care. They assist patients in activities of daily living, which include but are not limited to dental hygiene care, bathing, feeding and dressing.
School co-owner Rick Rathburn Jr. found there is a demand for properly trained STNAs after consulting with healthcare providers in the area. The need will most likely grow because of newly introduced legislation requiring care facilities to require hands-on caregivers to pass state-administered patient care exams.
Developing the course has been the work of Program Coordinator Margaret “Peg” Toth, a 20-year registered nursing veteran and educator in the healthcare field. Toth co-authored the long-term healthcare textbooks “Journal of Nursing Assistants,” “Restorative Nursing” and “Nursing Assistant In-Service Training Manual.”
The course is three weeks long, covering 90 hours of instruction. Class size is limited to 16 students who will spend 67.5 hours in classroom theory and hands-on lab instruction and 22.5 clinical hours in real-life settings at local care facilities.
Christine Rathburn is the school administrator.