CMC partners with Grand River Hospital District to offer free, eight-week course
By Mike McKibbin
CMC photo by Jordan Curet
Amanda Tiffany knows she wants to be a nurse because she completed an eight-week Mini Med School course at Colorado Mountain College’s West Garfield Campus in Rifle.
“As long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to go to medical school,” Tiffany said. “Taking Mini Med School got me interested in nursing.”
Mini Med School started its second year at the Colorado Mountain College Campus in Rifle on Sept. 16 and continued through Nov. 4. Taught via a satellite hookup from the Denver Museum of Natural History by University of Colorado School of Medicine professors, the class informs students about anatomy and physiology, cell biology, microbiology, immunology, pathology, pharmacology and cancer. Those who complete at least six of the eight classes receive diplomas.
The eight-week, lecture-based course is free and broadcast live to 12 outlying sites in Colorado via satellite. This fall in Rifle, 65 students enrolled in Mini Med School and approximately half that number attended each lecture.
Along with the CMC West Garfield Campus, the class is available at the college’s Summit Campus in Breckenridge. Rural audiences can participate in question and answer sessions after each lecture.
Deborah Devine, administrative assistant at CMC’s Summit Campus, said enrollment in Breckenridge has held steady at around a dozen students for the past few years.
“We had some nursing students, some others thinking of becoming nursing students and even some ski patrollers wanting to get a refresher,” Devine said. “Really anyone with any type of background would enjoy it.”
Kerani Kent of Rifle was a Rifle High School student when she enrolled in the course last year.
“I have been a teen volunteer (at Grand River Hospital in Rifle) for over two years,” she wrote in an e-mail. “Last year, my supervisor, Kaaren Peck, suggested I go as a student and a volunteer.” She wanted to learn more about the medical field as well as gain more experience as a volunteer.
The hospital district partners with the West Garfield Campus to offer Mini Med School. Peck, volunteer manager for the hospital district, said many of the five $2,000 college scholarships they awarded last year went to graduates of the class who are pursuing degrees in medical fields.
Tiffany, an 18-year-old Rifle resident, said she had not yet applied for a scholarship, though she is currently taking prerequisite classes to qualify for CMC’s nursing program. She said last year’s course helped her realize she would like to be a nurse who either helps deliver babies or works with cancer patients.
Tiffany said she would “probably not” be pursuing her current professional goal without the Mini Med School classes.
“We want to grow our own doctors, our own nurses,” Peck said. “If someone thinks they may want to be a CNA (certified nurse’s assistant), we want to encourage them to take it a step further and be a nurse or a physician’s assistant.”
The hospital district started a health care career club that included several of last year’s students, Peck added.
Kent was surprised at Mini Med School’s live presentation.
“I liked the fact that professors took the time to do lectures,” she wrote. “I liked when we got to ask questions, and have them answered.”
At the time she enrolled in the school, Kent thought she wanted to be a radiologist, but since taking the classes has decided she’d like to become a pediatrician.
Founded in 1989 by Dr. J. John Cohen, University of Colorado professor of immunology and medicine, CU Mini Med School has more than 15,000 graduates to date.
