From left, Joshua Revillame of MHS; John Apit, a recent MHS graduate; Joann Garcia, SSHS; and Elisha Valdez, MHS, pose for a photo at the Guam Marianas Training Center in San Jose, Saipan.
SAIPAN Southern High School student Joann Garcia said one day, she’d “like to be a pillar of strength and light and hope” for patients in an oncology ward or clinic.
Garcia, 16, is among the 23 students from Marianas High School, Rota High School, Saipan Southern High School, Tinian Sr. High School, Saipan International School, Mount Carmel School, and Northern Marianas College currently ongoing training in the PSS Nurse Assistant Summer Program.
The program, now in its third year, trains high school students and recent graduates in the skills and knowledge necessary to become certified nurse assistants. Training occurs at the Guam Marianas Training Center in San Jose through the PSS Career and Technical Education Program.
PSS CTE Program Director Jessica Taylor said the program is an opportunity for CNMI students to prepare for their future.
“The program prepares students for intermediate and advanced college courses by making demands on them equivalent to those made by full-year college courses,” Taylor said. “This program is aimed at encouraging students of diverse backgrounds to achieve their potential through college-level coursework. Specifically, our aim is to prepare students for a future that they may not have otherwise considered or have had the opportunity to pursue.”
John Apit, a recent graduate of Marianas High School and a program participant, said their off-island lecturers deliver classroom knowledge synchronously online. He said practical training such as how to administer CPR or take patients’ vitals occurs onsite. Later in the program, the students will shadow healthcare professionals practicing medicine.
The four students Variety spoke to about the program are confident that a career in the medical field is the right choice for them, Apit included.
For Apit, the training occurring this week is not his first foray into the world of nursing. He was once a summer intern at the Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation in his junior year.
“I was at the nursing station,” Apit said. “I got to see first-hand what the ‘chaos’ would be like, how fulfilling the career can be, and what medical healthcare professionals go through.”
Elisha Valdez is an incoming senior at MHS. She has known since she was a child that caring for people was the job for her. She remembers that when she was younger, she asked her mother to purchase a toy nursing kit. Later, when she was more able, she helped care for sick family members.
Her life experiences and the training under the program have led her to pursue pediatrics.
“I have this passion with helping kids,” Valdez said. “I hear from my friends that I’m really good with kids. I took that comment to be like, ‘Oh, I should be a pediatrician.’ ”
Joshua Revillame, also an MHS student, said this is his “first step” toward a career in the medical field, and he hopes the training can be leveraged into an opportunity to work at a clinic or hospital.
He has thought about what the job requires of practitioners.
“Last night I was thinking what are the pros and cons. I talked to my parents and they [support] me,” he said.
At minimum, Revillame believes he’ll need about five years of education before he can practice nursing in the field he’s interested in. He says he will eventually go to Northern Marianas College to pursue this choice.
