Teacher wins award for medical program

Teacher wins award
for medical program
By vincent todaro
Staff Writer

JEFF GRANIT Middlesex County Vo-Tech teacher Maureen Minnick helps Dorothy Bisogno work on her résumé. Minnick trains her students to be medical assistants.

EAST BRUNSWICK — It may mean going back to a high school format all over again, but one teacher is making it worthwhile for adult students.

Maureen Minnick, a teacher with the Middlesex County Vocational and Technical School District, prepares adults who already have high school diplomas for jobs in the medical field.

Her efforts have helped her capture the 2003-2004 Middlesex County Teacher of the Year award, not to mention the gratitude of so many former students now working in the medical field.

Minnick teaches at the district’s East Brunswick campus, located on Rues Lane. She works with adults whose ages vary greatly and helps prepare them for careers in the field.

Minnick acknowledges that her program is not for everybody.

"It’s a pretty intense program," she said. "They have to be really motivated to stick it out.

"But adults want to be here," she added. "They’re grateful for the opportunity."

The 10-month program, called Health Unit Coordinator/Medical Assistant, is more creative than its title implies. The program combines classroom and work­place learning, all under Minnick’s watch.

"The students come from a variety of backgrounds, from recent graduates to older people who want a change of pace," she said, adding that some have recently been laid off from jobs in other fields.

"I’m training them to work at doctors’ offices, take orders and learn all about di­agnostic testing and taking blood," she said. "They also learn medical billing, tele­phone skills and insurance. The insurance skills are really marketable."

And her students have obviously taken note of her ability, as they nominated her for the school branch’s Teacher of the Year award, which she also won. The school’s administration — which runs five high schools — then passed her name along for the county award.

In a prepared statement, officials at the school said, "Maureen has shown a strong commitment and love for teaching. In addi­tion, she has a strong commitment to community. She has established a clinical training site for students’ externships. She has worked with Elijah’s Promise (in New Brunswick), her church in Sayreville, and local community food banks."

Minnick was informed in May that she had won the county award.

The vocational school is actually a high school that includes programs for adults and high school students. Some of the classes are integrated, though her program is for adults only.

The program is designed so that stu­dents can become certified as medical as­sistants or health unit coordinators, Min­nick said. She instructs students on a num­ber of topics, including computers, com­munications, medical law and medical ethics.

"It’s a 10-month program on a regular high school schedule," she said. "They (the students) spend half the year doing extern­ships such as clinical training in hospitals and doctors’ offices."

Minnick, who was also the school’s Teacher of the Year in 1997, said the school day runs from 8:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., when students are learning in the school itself. During externships, the day goes from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. She has 13 students who are graduating this month.

Minnick said her students respond well to her because of the positive reinforce­ment she uses.

"There’s a lot of give-and-take — a lot of respect," she said. "I explain to them how to deal with a lot of issues in the (medical) workplace, such as how to stay calm, good communication skills and how to deal with angry people and older peo­ple."

And she stays in touch with former stu­dents because they often wind up with jobs at the same places where her current stu­dents are doing externships.

"I take the new people there, and they hook up with former students," she said. "It has like a pyramid effect, which is nice."