what2be

Dietitian

Erin Seiter, dietitian > Miami Valley Hospital

By KEN MOSIER
For What2Be

You might think that the old jokes about hospital food wouldn’t apply anymore with dietitians such as Erin Seiter coming to work for hospitals. Instead of the more heavily-science based curriculum that most dietitians follow, Seiter graduated with an associate degree in culinary arts and a bachelor’s degree in culinary nutrition from the Rhode Island campus of Johnson & Wales University.

“I was planning to open up my own restaurant eventually but I saw the hours and the weekends and decided that that was not really what I wanted to do,” she said. “We had to take nutrition classes within our degree and I loved it, so I decided to switch majors and focus on culinary nutrition.”

After graduation, dietitians must serve an internship of six to 12 months - depending on the location. They are then eligible to take the registration exam for the American Dietetic Association to become a Registered Dietitian. Seiter finished her internship at Miami Valley Hospital in July and was hired to work as a dietitian. She will sit for the exam in October.

Normally, dietitians in hospitals neither cook nor serve the food to patients. Their job is to work with doctors and nurses to assess special dietary needs of patients. “(At Miami Valley) we are on a five-day reassess so we see patients on their fifth day of admission unless we get a doctor-consult or a nurse-referral or just our own discretion that we think the patient needs to be seen (before that),” Seiter said. “So we kind of go through the charts and see who we need to see that day.”

“We do a nutritional assessment (on that day’s patients) and see what their needs are. We visit with the patient to see if there is anything that we can add to their tray or any supplements that they need. Then we take care of (patients on) feeding tubes and have those recommendations in the charts for the doctors.”

“With what time is left, we try to get all the education done for the day,” she continued.

Education is a key part of a dietitian’s job.

People on special diets need to have instruction in food preparation, etc.

“A lot of people don’t know how to cook or, if they are on a bland or special diet, they say it is tasteless,” Seiter said. “It doesn’t have to be that way. There are lots of ways to incorporate flavor without including fat.”

Hospitals are not the only work venues for dietitians.

“Dietetics is a huge field. In wellness centers, they do a lot of outpatient education so they have dietitians who work for them. A lot of colleges have one on staff for their food service. Various spas, private counseling, even a lot of grocery stores are hiring them now just to have one on staff,” she said.

In a grocery store or chain, the dietitian might make up a menu of healthy recipes for customers based on that week’s ads.

“It is really interesting to see all the places that dietitians can work,” Seiter said.

Seiter eventually wants to teach healthy cooking and nutrition classes at cooking stores. She also plans to pursue a master’s degree in nutrition after becoming registered.

Cytotechs work in laboratories - for the most part on the day shift - and are among the higher-paid of medical technologists according to Clark. There is a continuing shortage of those professionals so job opportunities are plentiful.

Medical Assistant

Jennifer Barr, MT > Sinclair Community College

By KEN MOSIER
For What2Be
Not many jobs in the field of medicine offer regular hours — no holidays or midnight shifts.
Being a medical assistant usually does.
“Medical assistants work in doctors’ offices, urgent care facilities and clinics,” said Jennifer Barr, chairperson of the Medical Assistant Technology program at Sinclair Community College.
Barr — a Certified Medical Assistant herself — said that there are different levels of MAs and their duties encompass many parts of the health care field.
“If you have been to the doctor lately, chances are it was a medical assistant assisting you  — not a nurse. They basically work under the auspice of the physician so there are times when a person can just come off the street and (get a job),” she said.
To become certified by the American Association of Medical Assistants, however, the candidate must have graduated from a school accredited by the Commission for Accreditation for Allied Health Education Programs before being eligible to sit for the national exam. Sinclair, a CAAHEP school, offers an associate degree in medical assistant technology. “So far we have had a 100 percent pass rate on the certification exam and we have had 100 percent placement of our graduates,” Barr said proudly.
“There is a huge demand (for MAs). It is rated in the top 10 of the fastest-growing health care professions by the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” she continued.
So what exactly does a medical assistant do?
“They can administer medicine, they can draw blood, they can assist with minor office surgeries,” Barr related. “They deal with pediatrics all the way up to geriatrics. They take vital signs and they can do the administrative work.
“They can check you in (to the doctor’s office ) and they can check you out,” she continued. “They can also do the billing for the office.
“Medical assistants can basically run a physician’s office from the front end where they greet patients to the back end where they are assisting patients,” she said. “It is a lot of variety and one day is not the same as the next. It is very active and very exciting.”
She cautions that an MA is not a nurse. “(It is) a different profession from nursing. Nursing works with acute-care patients. We work with ambulatory patients,” she explained. “Basically what we say is that ‘nursing patients roll in and medical assistant patients walk in.’”
Barr got a bachelor’s degree as a medical technologist from Eastern Kentucky University and worked in a laboratory in Tulsa, Okla. She married a chiropractic physician and became his medical assistant (at that time, a degree in MA was not necessary to take the exam.)
She got her Master of Education degree from Wright State University and is nearing completion on her doctorate in Health Care Services Administration.
“Once you have graduated as a Medical Assistant, you can go anywhere (to work),” she said. “You can go to insurance companies and travel around and do insurance physicals. You can go into pharmaceutical sales. You are not limited to just physicians’ offices,” she said.
Medical Assistants might work 10-hour days or half-days on Saturdays. Some urgent care facilities are open late so a second shift is a possibility if the MA decides to work there. “Generally, it is a day-time job,” Barr said.

Infection Control Nurse

Vicki Johnson, RN - Kettering Medical Center

By KEN MOSIER

For What2Be

Vicki Johnson hears the question often — ‘What do you do besides getting people to wash their hands?’  Johnson is an infection preventionist in the Infection Control Prevention department of Kettering Medical Center.
“(Hand washing) is an important part of it,” Johnson said who added that her job encompasses much, much more. “A lot of it is prevention — that is why we are call preventionists.” Until recently her job was known as Infections Control Nurse. The Association of Professionals in Infection Control recently suggested the change to preventionist.
So what does she do to prevent infections in the hospital?
“On a typical day, you look at positive cultures,” she said. “We get a printout of all the positive cultures (within the hospital) and we go through them to see if they are healt- care related. You look at the timing, you look at the organisms and you look at the area (of the body) whether it is in the urine, blood or sputum.
“From that list you go look at charts and you can eliminate the ones that are related to something in the community because it is not health-care related. For those you don’t have to look any further,” she explained. “Should an (health-care related) infection occur, we track it to see how it can be prevented in the future, if it is tied to another infection, or if there is something going on.
“If we see too many of a certain type of organism within the facility, we work very closely with environmental services (for proper cleaning),” she said. The department also works closely with all other hospital units to prevent infections. “We want to make sure things are done right from the beginning. There are certain ways to do any sterile procedure.” She gave, as examples, the proper insertion of a catheter and the use of ventilators. “Before they go on the ventilator and while they are on it, it must be maintained in a certain way to prevent infection,” she explained.
Other parts of her job include working closely with the pharmacy department, taking calls and answering questions from physicians and other staff members and reporting certain infections to the local health departments. Johnson and her counterparts also serve on many committees in the hospital.
Johnson was working in a research laboratory with nuclear material in a weapons complex when her employer’s federal grant was withdrawn. Knowing that her job was likely to disappear, she enrolled in the Kettering College of Medical Arts and graduated with an associate degree and certification as a Registered Nurse.
As a nurse, she worked as a communicable disease specialist for the Warren County Health Department. She then returned to Kettering Medical Center as a nurse.
Infection preventionists can either be laboratory-trained workers or nurses. Certification as an infection preventionist is not easy. “It requires two years on-the-job experience full-time before you can even sit for the exam,” Johnson said. “You take the exam (and become certified) and five years later it has to be renewed.” Renewal is more than just filling out forms and submitting them. “You have to take the test again,” she said. “They want you to be really up-to-date.”
Besides hospitals, infection preventionists can be found in long-term care facilities, in home care, hospices and public health among other venues.

Social Worker

Heather Welch, Medical Social Worker - Good Samaritan Hospital

When Heather Welch started college, she had aspirations of majoring in business. “I found some of my classes to be quite boring,” she said. At the time she was doing secretarial work at a mental health agency in Springfield. “I saw everything that was going on around me and I wanted to be a part of that so I changed my major.”
Welch graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Wright State University and then took her Master of Social Work degree from the Ohio State University.
She currently is a Medical Social Worker working in Integrated Care Management at Good Samaritan Hospital. Her duty station is normally the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.
“Our biggest role as medical social workers is that we assist patients and their families with discharge planning,” she explained. “I see every patient here in the ICU. I assess every patient up here to make sure they have a good support system at home.” She works with families and patients to ensure that they have an appropriate and safe plan for home recovery when leaving the hospital. The medical social workers also assess reports of abuse and help people with basic needs of food, shelter and medications. “We are just simply being a support system to families and patients while they are here,” she said
Welch said that social work is a very broad field and offers many venues for employment. “Medical social work, mental health — a lot of community mental health agencies and patient mental health units — local senior resources and area agencies on aging — there are just so many choices in social work,” she said. “Which is why I chose that over counseling or being a therapist. You can do all of this under the title of ’social worker.’”
A Licensed Social Worker certification can be obtained in Ohio with a bachelor’s degree. “If you want a higher licensure status, you have to have a master’s,” Welch said. “Currently I am working on becoming a Licensed Independent Social Worker so that — someday down the line — I can do some contract work.”
Welch said there is a tremendous need for social workers. “Our population in general, there are just so many needs that need to be met and that is one of our primary goals as social workers — to help individuals meet their basic needs.” Besides the basics of food, shelter and medication, Welch says that people also sometimes need for someone to just listen.
After graduation, Welch worked for Mental Health Services in Clark County before coming to Good Samaritan.
She advises students to take any psychology and  sociology courses that might be available and to take as many humanities as possible.
“Anything you can learn about human nature because you will meet so many interesting and different people every day,” she said. “I would say that the best part of my job is that I just enjoy sitting down and talking with my patients and their families, just hearing about their lives.”
Welch says that prospective social workers should learn as much about the profession as they can and participate in any opportunities for job shadowing. “It is a challenging gig and you have to be prepared to face the pressures and challenges that you have every day because there is never a dull moment in this field.”

Clinical Lab Tech

Profile: Kris Cook
By JOHN BRUNING
For What2Be

“Ever since I was young I wanted to be a veterinarian,” said Kris Cook, MT, ASCP (Medical Technologist, American Society of Clinical Pathologists). She is an emergency-room lab tech in the Shaw Emergency and Trauma Center of Miami Valley Hospital.

What happened to the desire to be a vet? And why, instead, is she a full-time lab tech in the ER medical lab operated at Miami Valley Hospital by Compunet Clinical Laboratories of Moraine?

She fulfills her interest in animals by working part time at the Kettering Animal Hospital. And by caring for a dog, Chester, a refugee from the Society for the Improvement of Conditions for Stray Animals. She also has two cats, Trouble and KC, who get along just fine with Chester in Cook’s home in Dayton’s Belmont neighborhood.

Cook works the second shift, 3-11:30 p.m., in a room with the sign “STAT LAB” at the door. “STAT,” as you may know from TV medical shows, means there’s an emergency and you need to respond immediately. By its nature, everything is an emergency in an ER medical lab and in the ER to which it provides vital information.

Cook is one of several lab techs on every shift in the compact lab that is staffed 24/7 and which adjoins the ER. The lab is full of the latest in automated and computerized equipment to speedily and accurately test and provide information from blood and urine samples taken from ER patients.

The test results provide vital insights into each patient’s health, and are essential to the diagnosis and treatment decisions that the ER physicians need to make as quickly as possilbe.

“I know that I am able to help people who are sick,” Cook said, “and, hopefully, I’m making a difference. I like it a lot; it’s very interesting. It’s not routine; it’s different every day because of the patients.”

“I would tell young people looking for a career field that this is a good career path,” Cook said. “The schedule is flexible, and, for me, that’s a good thing. I don’t like to get up early, and I like being able to work second shift. I have a good rapport with my co-workers in the lab and with the nurses and physicians in the ER.”

The work is always “STAT” and sometimes it’s “super-STAT,” Cook said, when the need for quick results is more urgent than usual. The pace can be demanding, and the lab techs rub elbows in the course of the work. “It can get very stressful,” Cook said.

As a student at Dayton Christian High School, Cook liked science and math, and was an “A” student. Still intending to become a veterinarian, she was an honors student and earned a double major at Wright State University - in biology and in medical technology. Then she thought about the additional four years it would have taken to become a vet, and modified her plans.

She went to work in the lab at the former St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, and continued there when the name changed to Franciscan Medical Center. When the latter closed, she immediately found work at MVH, in her current role.

“The income is good; it’s a decent salary,” Cook said. “Health care is a good place to be; there will always be sick people. In this work you do have to work every other weekend and some of the holidays,” she added.

In her off time Cook relaxes with Chester and her purring cats, and goes bowling. She also cross-stitches and knits.

SCHOOLS WITH ACCREDITED PROGRAMS
BACHELOR’S DEGREE

Children’s Hospital Medical Center
Akron, OH (330) 543-8676 /sshriber@chmca.org

Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH (419) 372-2833 / rharr@bgnet.bgsu.edu

University of Cincinnati Medical Center
Cincinnati, OH (513) 558-7490 / linda.graeter@uc.edu

Ohio State University
Columbus, OH (614) 292-7303 / rudmann.1@osu.edu

Wright State University
Dayton, OH (937) 775-2306 / phyllis.pacifico@wright.edu

Southwest General Health Center
Middleburg Heights, OH (440) 816-8859
chartwell@swgeneral.com

Saint Vincent Mercy Medical Center
Toledo, OH (419) 251-8252/ Karlyn_Lange@mhsnr.org

TECHNICIAN

Stark State College of Technology
Canton, OH 44720 (330) 494-6170 ext. 4221
KCorsaut@starkstate.edu
www.starkstate.edu/academics/health/medlabtech.htm

Cincinnati State Technical & Community College
Cincinnati, OH (513) 569-1688
Janelle.Gohn@Cincinnatistate.edu

Cuyahoga Community College
Cleveland, OH (216) 987-4438 / barbara.freeman@tri-c.edu
www.tri-c.edu

Columbus State Community College
Columbus, OH (614) 287-2518 / Jdudas@cscc.edu
http://www.cscc.edu/DOCS/MedLab/index.html

ASSOCIATE

Lorain County Community College
Elyria, OH jdaly@lorainccc.edu
http://www.lorainccc.edu/LCCC/
LorainCountyCommunityCollege.lccc
(800) 995-5222 ext. 7194
(associate)

Lakeland Community College
Kirtland, OH (440) 525-7096 / fwlaw@lakelandcc.edu

Washington State Community College
Marietta, OH (740) 374-8716 / hkincaid@wscc.edu

Marion Technical College
Marion, OH (740) 389-4636 ext. 254 / batesd@mtc.edu

Shawnee State University
Portsmouth, OH (740) 351-3388 .
mthoroughman@shawnee.edu

University of Rio Grande
Rio Grande, OH (740) 245-7319 / rcheadle@rio.edu

Clark State Community College
Springfield, OH (937) 328-8077 /horns@clarkstate.edu

Jefferson Community College
Steubenville, OH (740) 264-5591 ext. 165
ssutherlan@jefferson.cc.oh.us
www.jefferson.cc.oh.us

Mercy College of Northwest Ohio
Toledo, OH (419) 251-1487 / pegestes@hotmail.com
www.mercycollege.edu

Youngstown State University
Youngstown, OH (330) 941-1761 / medelost@ysu.edu
www.ysu.edu

Zane State College
Zanesville, OH 43701 (740) 588-1311
vhuntsman@zanestate.edu
www.zanestate.edu

Audiologist

Profile: JoLynn Blair
By JOHN BRUNING
For What2Be

For her 11th birthday, JoLynn Blair’s parents gave her a microscope. ?I think I examined everything with that microscope,? recalled Blair, who now works as a pediatric audiologist in the Rehabilitative Services Department of Children’s Medical Center in Dayton.

On a recent day her duties included fitting tiny, digital hearing aids into the ears of a two-year-old boy. The small, state-of-the-art, digital devices were colored red, white and blue in honor of the boy’s July 4th birthday. Pediatric patients are not just small adults, pediatric specialists are quick to point out, and little personal touches like the coloring of the hearing devices help relax and comfort young patients.

By encouraging their daughter’s natural scientific curiosity, Blair’s parents nourished her early education that eventually culminated in her present career of service to children with hearing problems.

?I always liked science,? Blair said. However, after graduation from high school in McConnelsville, Ohio, she started out as a business major at Ohio University. But her early course requirements included science subjects and visits to a clinic where people were treated for speech and hearing problems. ?I saw the wide range of people who needed help in that area,? she said.

Blair changed her educational direction with the intention of becoming a speech pathologist or an audiologist. As a part of her course work, she practiced one-on-one with a little boy in a speech therapy clinic, helping him with articulation. The slow progress involved convinced her that she would prefer the faster pace and greater number of patients involved in audiology.

Blair earned a bachelor’s degree at OU, with a major in hearing and speech science, and added a Master of Arts in audiology, also at OU. She then had to complete a one-year clinical fellowship, which she did at a private hearing aid center in Lancaster.

Then she was able to apply to the American Speech and Hearing Association for approval to practice, in the form of a Certificate of Clinical Competence. That accounts for the professional letters after her name ? M.A., CCC-A. It takes aptitude, interest, specialized education and proper credentialing to work as an audiologist.

?As an audiologist I see a new patient every time,? Blair said. ?Each one is like a puzzle. Through testing I can detect the cause of the hearing problem and determine how to help. I love my job; I really do. Every day is a challenge. There’s a wide variety of kids to work with. It’s so fulfilling to help them hear better.

You get to see the look on their faces when you turn the hearing aid on. It’s a great job. I feel very lucky. After a diagnosis and fitting a hearing air, you get to follow up with testing and the care of the hearing aid.?

Testing of hearing includes infants and babies at Children’s. If a hearing problem can be detected and treated in a child’s first six months, the child will be able to perform equal to peers, Blair said. Early detection and treatment can make a lifetime of difference.

Blair is pleased with the technological improvements she has seen in hearing aids. ?All the hearing aids we fit are digital; they’re not analogue any more,? she said. ?We can program a computer chip to each patient’s hearing loss. They provide a clear signal for the child. It helps with speech perception. The new aids fit differently and are smaller. And with the new testing equipment, we can analyze how the hair cells and nerve fibers respond to sound.?

Blair met her husband, Andrew, in her freshman at OU, where he also was a student. The couple resides in the Forest Ridge area of Riverside. They have three sons: Sam, 9; Anthony, 6; and Daniel, 3.