By Jessica Votipka
The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson
This week, Pima County JTED will welcome high school students to its $24 million health and medical career center on Tucson’s south side.
The Mel and Enid Zuckerman Center for Health and Medical Careers houses the Licensed Nursing Assistant, Medical Assistant, Health Care Foundations, Pharmacy Technician and Social and Mental Health Technician programs.
“These young people will be able to ensure their entry-level employment with multiple certifications or go into additional training or college to be our future health care workforce, which we desperately need,” said Beth Francis, Pima JTED’s health care professional program manager.
The two-story building occupies 50,000 square feet at the JTED @ The Bridges Campus, 3300 S. Park Ave.
The Connie Hillman Family Foundation Health and Wellness Center and the Potoff Private Philanthropy Veterinary Sciences Center — including the student-run Class Pet Pima JTED Veterinary Clinic — will make their homes in the new facilities.
Students — under the supervision of professionals — will become well-versed enough in veterinary science to hold events like vaccination clinics, said Pima JTED Superintendent Kathy Prather.
Health professions students, including budding EMTs and nursing assistants, will learn higher-level patient treatment skills in the TMC Health Simulation Lab. Life-saving skills will be practiced on high-fidelity mannequins.
Eventually, students will get opportunities to help serve the community, in ways like assisting with public health screenings.
“Graduate students from the University of Arizona — maybe residents in the medical program — would come here, and they could run a clinic for vision and hearing screening,” Prather said. “Our students would assist with that process.”
How Pima JTED officials determined it was time to expand its health education program was multifaceted.
“We won’t open a new program unless the community is telling us that we need more young people trained in these areas,” Prather said. “That’s really the first step.”
Francis said there has been a lot of support for Pima JTED’s health and wellness facilities.
“The community I think is very excited to expand in this area because of the great need and health care and in so many different industries within health care,” she said. “I know working with my community health care facilities providers, they are really wanting to be heavily involved and help grow our future.”
Of course, students have to want the program.
“You’ve got to have enrollment,” Prather said.
She said there is a waitlist to enroll at Pima JTED, numbering hundreds of prospective students.
Pima County JTED, in its entirety, serves approximately 22,000 high school sophomores, juniors and seniors each year, according to the school’s website.
As students pour into the health and medical career center and its programs are perfected, Pima JTED officials continue working towards the next steps, Prather said.
“We are willing to try new programs — we do take some risks — (for example), when we have industry tell us we need people trained in the skills involved in manufacturing batteries or semiconductors or metrology. We are willing to take that on and say OK, let’s make it happen.”
“We’re in development in some of these emerging areas that will be really important locally and launching those, probably within the next two years.”
The rate of fundraising accomplished for the Zuckerman Center for Health and Medical Careers helps bolster those efforts. The health and wellness center is already almost paid for, Prather said.
“This community support — honestly, it has blown our minds. We have raised nearly $17 million of the $21 million estimated cost for this building.”
That includes a $5 million gift from the family of Mel Zuckerman.
Private donations and federal appropriations secured through bipartisan support mean that Pima JTED will make the final payment on the building at the end of this fiscal year, according to a Pima JTED release.
The building was built through a joint LLC partnership with Bourn Properties, BFL Construction Companies and Pima JTED for the construction process.
“It’s a place where you can have a full immersion and exposure to health science, medicine, technology — everything that is happening in that career field industry,” Francis said. “It is really going to be quite fun to watch evolve.”
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