The Medina County Career Center, which provides both technical high school and adult education programs, has launched a new training program to help address a local shortage of nurses.
The career center's director of nursing Tina Myers says the program has been in the works for two years and will be the first of its kind in the county.
The 11-month curriculum trains students to be Licensed Practical Nurses. The LPN certification allows people to enter the healthcare workforce more quickly than a two-year registered nurse program.
"Everything that happened with COVID, it kind of changed healthcare in many ways, and the demand for LPNs has increased since that time," Myers said.
Myers said LPN programs are often appealing to nontraditional or budget-conscious students because some employers will later pay for further education.
Northeast Ohio, like much of the country, is facing an ongoing nursing shortage. Statewide, more than half of nurses surveyed in 2024 felt their patient care unit wasn't adequately staffed on a consistent basis.
Julie Simons, Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Cleveland Clinic Medina, said there are also local factors driving Medina County's needs, like an aging population in long-term care facilities. By 2025, the area's population of residents over 65 is expected to grow by 40%.
And most of Medina's nurses and caregivers serving that population are recruited locally.
"To have the nursing program right here at home is going to help feed that pipeline," she said.
The career center's students will train in local hospitals and long-term care facilities as part of their clinical education.
Tuition for the program is free for anyone between 18 and 24 who graduated from Medina County Schools.
"We are only taking 25 students in this first cohort, and the outpouring of interest has honestly been kind of overwhelming," she said.
The program, which begins in January, runs for 11 months.
