Jobs Program Partners with Denison Hospital

Crawford County Memorial Hospital
Denison, IA

Denison is the home of Crawford County Memorial Hospital (CCMH) and the Denison Job Corps Center. The Denison Job Corps Center is one of only two centers in Iowa (the other is in Ottumwa).

Job Corps provides skills and certificate training for young people between the ages of 16-24. In 2016, CCMH and Job Corps partnered on an apprentice program for their Certified Nursing Assistant (CNAs) and Certified Medical Assistants (CMAs). This program gives each CNA or CMA student 80 hours of apprenticeship time in a hospital setting.

“The ability to work in a hospital setting is very important in providing our students with the ‘real world’ perspective,” said Doug Dorhout, Denison Job Corps Center director. “We are grateful to CCMH and their staff in providing us with this opportunity.”

Job Corps students work at CCMH at the end of their training and perform a preceptorship for two weeks with the clinic and hospital lab department. The CCMH Main Campus clinic has one week with each student followed by lab training the next week. Job Corps students begin utilizing their skills by rooming patients after some observation time and performing phlebotomy duties in the lab. The students then sit for their certifying medical board exam so that they can become CNAs or CMAs, which are highly used in hospital and outpatient clinics settings. The students are able to use this apprenticeship on their resumes and as a reference in their job searches.

“Not only do we see this as a great partnership with Denison Job Corps Center and their students, we also recognize an opportunity to recruit young health care professionals to work at CCMH,” commented Bill Bruce, CCMH President and CEO. “It really is a ‘win-win’ for all of us.”

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