1 week Ago By By RICK WAGNER [email protected]
BLUFF CITY — The automated mannequin “patients” in the new $1 million nursing lab at Sullivan East High School may not be real humans. However, the state-of-the-art devices can produce urine as well as present a pulse and make breathing sounds, all in an area that used to house student lockers. And one of the students in training in the lab, Leah Kelly, said she is there in part to honor a real human, her mother who nearly died when Leah was 3 years old.
Leah and a classmate said they want to help people in the future, possibly both as physicians. What the potential future licensed professional nurses and other health care professionals like 16-year-old Leah will learn there will make a real contribution to the future of health care, officials said. Politicians, local education leaders, teachers and students came together Friday at Sullivan East High School for the ribbon cutting of a $1 million nursing lab funded by Tennessee Innovative School Model Grant through the Tennessee Department of Education.
Afterward, those who attended could dine on culinary arts student-produced food and tour all of East’s CTE offerings. “I’ve just always wanted to be in health care,” Kelly said, while fellow freshman Practiksha Yadav, 15, said she’s always loved learning how the body and its systems work. “She (Leah’s mother) almost did pass.
Luckily, she powered through,” Leah said, adding that her mom still struggles with auto-immune issues. Leah said she wants to become a cardiothoracic surgeon, while Pratiksha said she wants to become a doctor or nurse. “I love my mom so I want to do it for her,” Leah said.
PROGRAM PRE-DATES LAB Tabitha Hall, the new nursing instructor who went to work for East in August, said she began teaching students then but that the nursing lab wasn’t completed until October. Three classes of about 15 students each are in the program, with about the same number for the spring semester. Hall is a former emergency room nurse at Holston Valley Medical Center in Kingsport, part of Ballad Health.
And if students find in the process nursing isn’t for them, she said “off ramps” are available to pursue a certified nursing assistant, certified medical assistant, a phlebotomist or physical therapy. WORKING TOGETHER East Principal Andy Hare said just before the ribbon cutting that the Ballad Health Academy, which is working with East and seven other area high schools on the LPN program, Tennessee Department of Education and Gov. Bill Lee through the Innovative School Model Grant are all crucial players in the success of the nursing lab at least.
So is the Tennessee College of Applied Technology Elizabethton, known as TCAT Elizabethton, that will provide an instructor for the students’ final year of LPN training, and Northeast State Community College, where nursing students can seek further training. “Working together is why we are strong,” Hare said. Director of Schools Chuck Carter said the state grant seamlessly weaved into the Ballad Health Academy grant to allow East students to graduate high school and become LPNs at the same time.
Board of Education Vice Chairman Michael Hughes said he’s always believed nurses and teachers “have a special place in heaven, while board member Mary Rouse, who was a high school student when East first opened in 1968, looked back to former Kingsport Superintendent Jeff Moorhouse in the crowd. “My locker was just about exactly where you’re standing,” said Rouse, who later became principal of East. She said the LPN program and lab give students the best opportunities possible, things never thought about in 1968.
Moorhouse, corporate director of secondary programs for Ballad Health Academy, said the partnerships among local schools, TCAT, the state and Ballad will help the East program accomplish its mission. However, he said the LPN pathways is the first of many pathways coming from Ballad Health Academy. Candi Collier, TDOE senior direcotr of career technical education programs and special projects, said the $560 million from the innovative CTE grants will pay future dividends statewide.
High schools get $1 million, while middle schools get $500,000, spendable over four years. “You have launched your students into success,” Collier said. Somebody who will find a cure for cancer or other diseases may be a student walking the halls of East, she said.
Debbie Madgett, CTE director for Sullivan County Schools, said: “We are opening a new opportunity for our students, our community and the future of health care.” WHAT’S NEXT A similar event to showcase an Innovative School Model Grant is set for Tuesday morning, Nov. 19, at West Ridge High School.
West Ridge is also one of the eight schools in the Ballad Health Academy LPN program, but West Ridge had a health care lab when it opened in August of 2021 and the Tuesday event will focus on a new construction trades lab..
