Photo courtesy of Chelsea High School
A program at Chelsea High School is giving students a pathway into health care while meeting a growing demand from both students and future employers.
Photo courtesy of Julie Godfrey
Students holding up their certificates showing they passed Patient Care Tech in the Chelsea Healthcare Academy.
The Healthcare Academy — a three-year program that began in 2019 — is part of Shelby County Schools’ broader commitment to career technical education, and it's already making a significant impact.
“I’m encouraging students to go into surgical careers such as surgical technology, surgical nursing, becoming a physician — you know, and specializing in surgery — and giving them an opportunity to explore those careers, not be intimidated by them, and have the information they need to decide if that’s a great career choice for them,” said Andrea Maddox, who leads the program at Chelsea.
The academy is designed to help students explore careers in the perioperative setting — operating rooms and surgical departments — as well as health care more broadly. Students are exposed to careers in surgical technology, surgical nursing and surgery-centered physician roles.
“Our students work really hard the first semester of their senior year to prepare for and study for that national
Photo courtesy of Chelsea High School
certified patient care technician exam, which gives them the credential to move on to the clinical component of the health science internship,” Maddox said.
Students receive clinical experience with industry partners including Shelby Baptist Medical Center and Heart South Cardiovascular Group. These partnerships give students the opportunity to apply their skills in real healthcare environments.
“Even this morning, while I’m talking to you, my students went to Shelby Baptist and took care of patients,” Maddox said. “Two of them observed surgeries — one saw a hip replacement, and another observed a hernia repair.”
Julie Godfrey, Career Technical Education supervisor for Shelby County Schools, said the program was developed in response to both workforce needs and student interest.
“We want to make sure we’re offering a lot of different, diverse opportunities for kids to be prepared for their future,” Godfrey said. “In talking to the panel, one of the things they brought up was that surgical techs were in high demand because they just didn’t have enough staff.”
Photo courtesy of Chelsea High School
Godfrey said many students enter the program with a clear idea of their career goals.
“They don’t just say they want to be a nurse or a doctor,” she said. “They say very specifically, ‘I want to be a pediatric nurse,’ or ‘I want to be a radiologist.’”
The program currently has about 115 students enrolled, with up to 48 students accepted into the first-year class each year.
“The program has become very popular,” Maddox said. “We’ve had no problem filling spots with highly qualified students who are truly interested in the health care field.”
Godfrey agreed, noting that the ultimate goal is to prepare students for life beyond high school — whether they enter the workforce or continue their education.
“We just want to equip them for what’s next,” Godfrey said. “And that comes in a lot of different ways.”
