Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital Apprenticeship program holds certified medical assistant program graduation ceremony

MANISTIQUE, Mich. (WLUC) - On Tuesday Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital in Manistique had a graduation ceremony for its certified medical assistant apprenticeship program.

The apprenticeship program is part of a partnership between U.P. Michigan Works and the hospital. U.P. Michigan Works Talent Pipeline Manager Megan Boddy said the apprentice program is facilitating a healthy pipeline of workers for U.P. hospitals.

“One of the main ways to do that is to get people working right away and get them working on the job because learning those hard skills,” Boddy said. “Those on-the-job skills are really what they need to be doing and spending time in class spend all their time in class and not being able to get them on-the-job experience isn’t always to a person’s benefit.”

Boddy also said this program is a huge benefit to all apprentices because they are able to balance the program’s classes and their daily life.

“This gave them an opportunity to still work still maintain their normal schedules and be provided with some free education to help them upscale and advance themselves in their career,” Bobby said.

Brooke Chase, one of those apprentices who is two years out of high school, said the experience and knowledge she gained will help her excel faster.

“Got to do stuff in the lab with phlebotomy we got to do EKG stuff and I’m still hands-on over in the clinic as a medical assistant,” Chase said. “So, I’ve been working, and I give vaccines, we get to do everything basically that an LPN would do in a clinical setting so that’s very nice.”

Boddy said U.P. Michigan Works is looking to expand to several more occupations like Pharmacy Technician in the future.

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