Episode 4: Starting Strong — Pathways to Health Science Careers

(upbeat music) - Welcome to today's edition of the Triple P Podcast. I'm your host, Mania Almanza. This is episode number four, and we're very excited to have two very special guests on the program today. First of all, we'll speak with Dr. Jennifer Brabe. Dr. Brabe is our dean of Health Sciences at Kilburg College and she'll discuss the pathways to becoming a Health Science student and what it leads to after the fact here at Kilburg College. And also later in the program, we'll talk with Dr. Stacey Martin. She is going to be the interim president of Kilburg College beginning on November the 1st. All that is ahead on today's edition of the Triple P Podcast. (upbeat music) Hello and welcome to this edition of the Triple P Podcast. I'm your host, Mania Almanza, and joining me today, it is our dean at Health Sciences at Kilburg College, Jennifer Brabe. And she will be talking about, of course, pathways for students who want to get into the Health Sciences at KC. And then also about some neat things that the Health Science department is doing and plans on doing with the help of some grants they've applied for. Jennifer, thank you so much for being with us today. - My pleasure. - All right, so let's talk about pathways for Health Sciences. How do students get involved into a Health Science program at Kilburg College? - There's various ways. We offer quite a few pathways in high school for dual credit. So those offer opportunities as a medical assistant, a pharmacy technician, nurse aid, patient care tech. Those are avenues. We also do philbotomy at EKG in high school. If you are interested in coming to us, just straight out of high school and or as to upskill or reskill, we offer various certification programs and then also associate degree programs. Many colleges and programs offer or would recommend if you're not quite sure, I would always say to start with a certificate. Those are always in high demand. We currently offer philbotomy. We offer medical assisting, pharmacy technician, sterile processing, community health worker. That is a new career opportunity as it relates to case management. And then as far as associate degrees, we offer a nursing, both a registered nurse pathway, a vocational nurse pathway. We offer surgical technologies to working as a scrub technician in the operating room. We have physical therapy assistant. So doing rehab and therapies with patients in the hospital clinics and even in the schools. We also have a radiology technician. Those are the folks that are actually taking the x-rays and the clinics and in the hospital setting. And then we will be launching this August, excuse me. Yes, this August of 2026, we will be launching our new diagnostic medical sonography program. - So let's talk about that for the second because it is going to be the newest thing that you'll be offering in 2026. How did the college go about being able to institute that program? So many colleges sometimes have to cut back progress. But you have the opportunity to bring in you on a board. - Yeah, absolutely. So we have a dire need here in the East Texas area to increase our stenographers. There is actually a shortage here that would delay patients getting their scans done. So we have been given the opportunity to also partner closely with Christus Good Shepherd. And so they have been instrumental in us collaborating and working to bring this program to light. And so we are going to start with the diagnostic medical sonographers, so that's going to focus on an individual being able to scan abdominal OB/GYN and some vascular. That is a two year degree. It will be highly competitive. The other program closest is that at TJC. And it's also a very limited program as far as enrollment due to clinical placements. So we will start our first cohort of 10 students and probably try to ramp that up to no more than 15. - And is our application open now for that program? - It is not quite open yet. It will open after the first of the year. We are still in the building stages. So yes, application should open up and be available on the website as early as February, March. - So as we talk about the addition of that program, there are other programs that have been quite stable over the course of years at Kilburg College. Obviously you're more in tune to the nursing program, having been a nurse yourself, having been in the profession. So let's talk about the strides and nursing programs that are made here at KC. - Yeah, so in the past three years, we have definitely grown our RN program. We are at a current 100% pass rate and have been for the last two years. And we are protected to be at another 100% for 2025. 2025, our VN program, we actually brought back because it was embedded within our RN program. So we've had that now for two years and they too also have a 100% pass rate. So that program actually has a waiting list. So we are growing very well in a positive direction. - And obviously there's no shortage of nursing opportunities in the East Texas area or in areas close by East Texas where students can not that you want to believe East Texas, but they can go here to the Metro Plegs or down in Houston or places like that. It's just a vast variety of jobs and health science are really especially nursing. - So any of our health science programs that we offer are considered high demand by the Texas Workforce Commission. And so we are striving here at the college to ensure that we are providing all programs that they are of high demand. So it's easy to get a job. We have a 100% job placement for the majority of all of our programs. It's not a problem. Our certificate programs are definitely quicker and easier to gain employment. And that would be a great opportunity for somebody who may be interested in healthcare, not quite sure, to get their foot into the door and then do a little bit of work and see what it is that they like about the industry. And then most hospitals provide tuition reimbursement. So they promote professional growth and professional development. And so they would offer a tuition reimbursement. So those students could go back to school and either gain another certificate and do stackables or pursue their degree in whether that be in nursing or in sonography or radiology. - For somebody who hears the term stackable for the first time, can you explain what that means? - Sure, so that's basically starting kind of at the very entry level of a position and then gaining another certification and then another certification, then ultimate reaching your optimal career goal or stopping where you feel this is where I'm comfortable and this is what I'd like to do. - And as far as that is concerned, what a great way for a student to be able to stop in a place that they want to do, evaluate what they're doing, but it gives them an opportunity to go ahead and jump ahead if they needed to do so or if they decided that's what we wanted to do to further their career. - Absolutely, so we have a lot of students that are actually working in the industry and are working alongside earning their degree. We have some students that just, they're not even quite sure what it is that they're interested in. And so we always recommend maybe job shadow first, get an idea of what it is that you like and or if we have a student that gets enrolled in a program and in a few weeks in, they decide that this is not really what they're interested in, then we would sit down and try to gear them towards another healthcare career that way they are not losing any of the information or knowledge or skills that they've learned. We can apply that to something else. - And I guess within the skills that they learn, the knowledge that they get, there's a lot of crossover, right? With the different types of jobs they could have within the health science field. - Yes, so in our degree plans, almost all of our prerequisites are the same. And so if somebody is just starting out and they're not quite sure, we would definitely advise them to take the prerequisites that's applicable to almost all of our health science programs. And then like you stated things overlap, there's a lot of commonalities, there are a lot of differences. However, for the most part, a lot of what we do is service oriented, it's customer service, it's communication. And so we definitely integrate all of those soft skills and professionalism skills into each of our programs to ensure that they are meeting the patient and client where they are. And then that way, I mean nobody wants to go into a healthcare facility and not be treated with kindness, dignity and respect. And so that's definitely embedded in our programs to make sure that they meet those qualities and can care for others. - Do the majority of the students go for the certificate programs or the degree programs? - I do, we have a great mix. We have a lot of students both in our, all of our health science degree programs are full. They are selective admission. And so that means that we only take a certain number of students each semester. That's based on how many students we can place in a clinical setting. Our certificate programs is very much the same. We're limited at how many we can accept each time because they all do a clinical rotation. I will say something that sets us apart at Kilgore. for all of our Health Science Certification programs is that we require a clinical rotation. You're going to see a lot of advertisements for philbotomy, EKG, other programs out there and they say they're all online. And although that may seem very attractive for you to be able to do that online, you miss the true hands-on experience that an employer is looking for when they're looking to hire for staffing purposes. So we get a lot of students who may have already taken a program somewhere else, but they didn't get the hands-on experience working in the lab, working on the task trainers, and then actually going to the facilities and drawing blood on real folks. So it's really important to our community partners in our industry that those individuals have hands-on experience prior to their first job of employment. We want them to be able to talk to people and be mindful and truly have an experience before they get in there. And so that is really what sets us apart. We also do hybrids. So I know that a lot of people are working and taking care of families or have other sense of responsibility. So our programs are hybrid. They do not have to be here four days a week. So we do our best to do a mixture of one to two days in class and then the rest they can do online. So do you serve us a good amount of people that are wanting to help skill or improve on the skills that they have now, whether it's through a continuing education course or a degree type of program? We do. We get a lot of folks that may have had another career and they realize that healthcare is always an up and coming and so they're wanting to get into that. So we would consider that a new skill and then we have others that are just they are up skilling because they've gained one certification and now they want to move along the way within the healthcare industry. So it's a good mix of both, both interest. So let's take for example, I want to get into the health science field into a career. How would you walk me through a pathway to get to one and you can pick anyone you want because you'll evaluate what I can do or can't do? So the first things that I would do is when I'm speaking to an individual is basically ask what is your your ultimate goal? What is it you see yourself doing for a career? And then based on that answer, I start asking questions of do you like change or do you like to mix things up? The reason I ask that is because some health science programs are repetitive. You do the same task and if you're a personality like that likes change and likes variation, then you may not want to necessarily do something that is repetitive. That might become very boring over time. And so we I want to know and you know ask them to what are their interests? What do they like? Learning more about the person and then helping them find where their fit is. Some people have a thought that they want to do something and then as you dig deeper and do some what I would consider holistic advising, really diving into the individual, you find that they might change their career path based on the questions that we ask so that we get them in something that they truly have a passion and desire to do. Is there one program at Kilburg College right now in the health science field that is more I guess there's more enrollment or that's people that you have more students in one program than another is the one that stands out more enrollment wise because we know all of them are important to the health science industry. So I would say nursing is probably our largest program here at the college. We take 90 students a year versus our radiology program. We take 48 students a year. I do believe that some of the other programs could be just as large. There is a great interest. We just based on our clinical placement cannot accept more students. Meaning we couldn't put them in to do their clinical rotations. But nursing right now and has been for years our largest health science program. Facilities are important and you have one of the newest and possibly one of the best in the East Texas area here at the Torrance Health Science Education Center. Talk about what that has meant to your programs as the Dean of Health Sciences. It has been very instrumental in marketing and really the exposure and experience that these students are receiving. They come in. They are very intrigued with the equipment and task trainers that we have. The Realism our simulation lab is absolutely beautiful but not so much that it's beautiful is that everything that they're going to see in the hospital is right there. It's important for me as the Dean to make sure that in all of our health science areas that our students are practicing on the same equipment that they are going to see in practice. So that that transition from academia to practice is seamless or as as seamless as it can be. And it kind of takes away that sense of anxiety of I don't know how that piece of equipment works. And so here at the Torrance we have been truly blessed with the three simulation labs for nursing and then we have a beautiful physical therapy lab for our PTA students. Radiology we have four, I believe four X-ray machines as far as rooms for them to do all that with a portable and then we are right now actively looking at our sonography machines and meeting with our clinical partners to see what is currently being in practice so that we will select the machines here on campus to mirror so that they have that when they go into clinical they've already worked on a machine like that. They don't have to learn another device. You've had the opportunity to apply for a couple of grants recently and of course waiting official announcement on all of these things but let's talk about those grants and what they're for and how they can help your department. So the true grant is one we've had for the past three years that's provided by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. We have used that grant for the past three years in our Health Science Workforce areas in these certification programs. And those grants have truly been able to provide students an opportunity to take our program if they are pill eligible at no cost. So their tuition is free and then last year we wrote the grant to include a stipend to be able to pay the students to actually go do some of their clinical rotation. The reason that we wrote it that way is that we have seen and continue to see that a lot of our students are needing to work and it's very difficult to upscale or rescale when you don't have a sense of income coming in to pay your bills and to raise your children. So we have been blessed and was awarded that last year. It's been very helpful and students are taking that opportunity. And then this year we did apply for an Aspen Institute and Trellis Foundation grant. Today we're looking for innovative ideas to collaborate nursing programs and paid clinical ship being able to do paid clinicals. And so we did write that grant. We were awarded that last month and so we will be launching a nursing apprenticeship model in collaboration with Christus Health beginning fall of 2020 or fall of 2026. So that will be huge benefit because these students will be paid to do their clinical rotations for the last year of their schooling here. It also is an on-the-job interview for one year for Christus. And so basically it really should make that transition from academia to practice very seamless. It also is giving them the opportunity to incorporate academics and working at the same time. So now they don't have to go get an extra job. They're actually getting paid to do their clinicals. And the goal of that is for us to ensure greater completion rates for our students. And then hopefully decrease orientation time as a new graduate on Christus behalf. And then hopefully increase retention as a new graduate a year after. So there's a lot of positives for that grant. And then we also have applied for another grant that we received from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which is a true grant for 2526 and 27. We have been awarded that grant. That grant is going to allow us to train the nurses at the hospital how to work with nursing clinical students. And so currently nurses at the hospital are considered preceptors, but they're training employees. But when they work with the nursing students, there's no incentive. And so coming from the industry and knowing the workload that a nurse already has, it sometimes can be very overwhelming to then have somebody else that you have to train while you're doing all of your other duties. So this is an opportunity for us to train the preceptors or the hospital staff nurses on how to truly work with nursing students and give them an opportunity to buy in and be a part of bringing up the next generation of nurses. And then last but not least, we do have one other grant that's out on the table and that would be a grant for us to be able to offer an advanced cardiac sonography program and that program would be for those that are already licensed sonographers to come and do a six month hybrid program to be licensed to do echo. So that is a great need in this area with the amount of cardiovascular services that we provide in here in East Texas. It is at a huge need that we are trying to help meet with the collaboration of Christus Goodshepard. You mentioned your collaboration with Christus and also the grants that you've been applying for and that are received. So you have those partnerships build as well. And since this is a podcast about pathways and partnerships, talk for a few moments about the partnerships that you do have and what they mean to your program. Sure. So all of our programs require that clinical rotation. So we couldn't do what we do without all of our clinical affiliates or our clinical partners. They are all instrumental in our programs. They all participate in our advisory board committees for each of the programs. So we truly value their voice, their input, their suggestions. And obviously our goal as an education institution is to ensure that we are providing a program that is meeting the needs of our community. But even following with current trends in health care best practices of today. And so without those collaborations and those partnerships we wouldn't be where we are today. Well, Jennifer, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. I know you're busy being the dean of health sciences. There's a lot going on and you certainly have a lot of programs to watch over. But thank you so much for explaining pathways to us, talking about your partnerships. Good luck on getting the rest of the grants that you want to get. And congratulations on the success you've had here at Killmore College. Thank you. It was our pleasure to get to speak with Dr. Jennifer Bray, our dean of health sciences at Killmore College. Next up on the program, Dr. Stacey Martin, interim president of Killmore College. Dr. Martin, one of the vice presidents of the Killmore College, has been named the interim president for Killmore College beginning on November the first. Dr. Brenda Kays will be retiring in February of 2026. And so Dr. Martin has a privilege of leaving KC for a while. So Dr. Martin, thank you for being with us today. Now you've done a lot of Killmore College that led up to you being named the interim. So let's talk about the things you've done prior to this. Many I do have a lot of experience in my almost 25 years here at Killmore College. I first started out as assistant registrar. And I work with a lot of different things such as the class schedule, graduation, evaluating transfer transcripts and a lot of other miscellaneous things was in that position for about six years and then had the opportunity to be the registrar and direct red mission for a period of about seven years. So supervise the registrar's office, our admissions application processing. I did state reporting. Also worked a lot with dual credit and we had a big period of growth in students and dual credit during that time. So had opportunities to supervise when a lot of changes were occurring and we were making a lot more things electronic and through our online system such as faculty putting in grades online and things of that nature. I did decide to go back to school while I was a registrar and director of admissions to get my doctorate with the hopes of moving higher up at Killmore College eventually. And in 2014, right as I was finishing up my dissertation research, I did have the opportunity to apply for and be selected as vice president of institutional planning. In that role, I supervised our accreditation efforts and was our accreditation liaison with SACC OC, our accrediting organization, worked on institutional research, worked on some policy development, had some key roles during COVID of working with employees and providing some training and developing standards and protocols for that time. I did miss working with students and so that led me to apply when there became a vacancy for vice president of student services and that was in 2021. And I was so privileged to get that job and to be supervising athletics, the Ranger at organization and missions, financial aid, counseling, testing, campus police. And it was just a really good opportunity to impact the daily lives of students where I had been working behind the scenes for several years. And I did supervise probably some things I'm forgetting that was a very busy time. And then last summer, Dr. K's asked if I would come back into a previous role focusing on accreditation and institutional research and strategic planning and our improvement efforts. And so transition one more time to vice president of organizational effectiveness and excellence, which is pretty much the same job I had held for about seven years just a different title. And so here I am today making another change for at least an interim period of time into being the chief executive officer for Kilburg College while our board conducts a presidential search. Was there something in all of the things that you've listed in your career here at Kilburg College that you felt like that was more in your wheelhouse that yeah this is something I really love to do. Obviously you love all you've done because you've been here for so long. But is there one thing that you said yeah this job was really cool. Well that's a hard question because I have really enjoyed everything I've done. Of course there are ups and downs and challenges with everything. But it probably would be when I was the registrar I really liked solving problems for students and that really bulls down to what a president does in some ways is ensuring that students don't have problems that things run as smoothly as possible. Letting folks do their jobs and that's what I did as the registrar I had people working on different tasks related to student records and registration and admissions application processing that I provided guidance. So those things would go smoothly. I felt really comfortable with that and confident in my abilities that we could in almost every situation find a solution that would be within what we could do with our laws and regulations to be able to do. So I had some relations to meet the needs of the student. There were sometimes I had to say no and that was not fun but we would exhaust everything we could and so I just really felt I came into my own in my higher education leadership career while I was in that job. In-tune capacity it seems like your well-rounded career at Kilgore has set you up very well to take that part simply because of the fact that you've had a piece or been part of everything that has gone on at the college including working directly with students. Absolutely and students have to stay at our forefront and that's what we have to keep first in mind with everything we do. I have been exposed to so much and had to work with people across the entire college whether it be working on accreditation which is a whole college effort working with departments on their annual improvement plans over the years knowing what they do learning that through the process and knowing what's important to them to show their meeting, their criteria that they need to meet for success in whatever area that is. I also feel like my experience being a vice president now for 11 years being involved at the highest levels of decision making here at the college has prepared me well such as reviewing the budget for the college overall, being in board meetings, being in policy discussions and that's just branching out even more from my day to day hands-on experience. Part of what we do in our podcast is talk about partnerships as well so you've already built those partnerships in the past so the roles you've had but now they have the opportunity to build more so talk about how important those partnerships are going to play in the future of the college. They are important we don't exist in isolation and right now probably our biggest partnership of opportunity that we have in place but there's opportunity for growth is with our local school districts that we serve. Dual credit has blossomed and boomed in the last couple of years and so we need to continue the relationships with our schools because dual credit students are now about 60% of our student population and we did just sign a memorandum of understanding with Longview ISD this week on an innovative program to allow a group of their students to come take classes on our campus versus at the high school which is how most students do dual credit gives them a true college going experience to be in the classroom with other college students not just their high school classmates and so we're very forward. fortunate to have a Longview ISD superintendent, Dr. Marla Sheppard, working with us on that and has really a lot of interest from the families. It is so important to ensure we're meeting those needs of all of our districts large or small and also making those partnerships sustainable over time as state funding changes, as education changes, both at the K-12 level, at the college level, and keeping those close relationships are very important. I was able to work with a lot of school district personnel when I was registered on Director of Admissions due to dual credit and interacted with those high school counselors and principals. And so this also takes me back to my roots when I was a public school teacher for four years here in East Texas before I started working in higher education. And so I like to get back into that world even though I left that world to pursue higher education career, but it is important to start that educational process early, well before students start college and letting them know of their options. Are you hopeful that this agreement with Longview High School to be able to get students to come and take courses on our campus here at the K-12 World School College? Are you hopeful that that will help more dual credit students see the value of coming to K-C after they graduate from high school if they still have credits to obtain on the community college level? Yes, it sure will because it will prove out that this is a good experience. And students feel more engaged and a part of the college and their retention is higher, which means that they come back and they keep pursuing their degree to completion. And having that on campus experience is really crucial to that. So it may be something we can expand to other school districts. But hopefully that word of mouth will start getting out and we can share successes of those students. And I think it's really important that they be exposed to the college campus. I always thought when I was recruiting students years ago in my, the early days of my career, that if I could just get them on campus and give them a warm welcome and show them what we do and people were so interested to meet them and encourage them that we had a much better chance of them becoming our student eventually. Also with that memorandum of understanding, there's an agreement to our partnership with UT Tyler as well. And Kilburg College has had a wonderful partnership with UT Tyler. Yes, we have and I have gotten to meet Dr. Julie Philly, the president at UT Tyler. And we are committed to having really a seamless pathway from high school into community college. While they're in high school, it would be a free program for this particular group of students. But beyond that even any student who completes at Kilburg College, then being able to easily transition into UT Tyler, that is where we send the most transfer students. It is our local university. It is grown. It's a beautiful campus. They are expanding medical programs. And that is so critical for the future of these Texas that we provide educated people who are more likely to stay here and contribute here because they're from here. It seems like you're very excited for this opportunity, although it might be a short time, might be a long time depending on the process that plays out and choosing a new president. But you seem very excited to have this opportunity to help with those decisions or to make those decisions or to have more a part of those decisions. I really am, Annie. It is the highest honor of my career to be asked by our Board of Trustees to serve in this role. And I do feel like that everything that I have done in my higher education career as well as my teaching career, which I'm actually now in my, I think, 34th school year of being an education. It has all come together for this moment. And I feel prepared. I feel excited. I feel honored. And people have been so supportive and encouraging to me. Yes, there will be challenges. It's not going to be easy at all. But I'm a naturally optimistic person. And I will not be perfect, but I will give it my best and lead with integrity and keep students at the center of what we do. What are you Martin? Thank you so much for all you have already done for Kilburgr College and what you're going to do. As you continue at KC, we appreciate you taking time to be with us on the podcast today. Thank you. It's my pleasure. It was a pleasure to have Dr. Jennifer Bray and Dr. Stacey Martin on our program today. We'll have another episode of our Triple P podcast coming up. So make sure you subscribe if you haven't yet. And also make sure you tune in next time for our Triple P podcast for Kilburgr College.