A ribbon cutting for American Training Center’s new location in Cherry Hill took place on Dec. 4. The program was previously based in Pennsauken.
A training center for medical assistants has opened in Cherry Hill, where officials from the township, county and state were on hand earlier this month to celebrate the facility with a ribbon cutting.
Previously headquartered in Pennsauken, the American Training Center’s new base location will allow for twice as many students to enroll in its competitive eight-week program for medical assistants, who are often assigned to prepare patients for visits with their doctors by scheduling appointments and testing blood pressure, among other tasks.
American Training Center is a nonprofit whose program not only educates assistants, but provides them with more clinical experience in a shorter time frame than comparable programs that can take from six to nine months.
“It’s an incredible impact (on the local medical field),” said instructor and Gloucester Township resident Leah Cokos.
She noted forecasts that show a growing need for medical assistants and emphasized how life-changing it can be for trainees to build a career foundation in eight weeks, gain the necessary skills and get a job soon after training.
“Some people will say, ‘I went to a nine-month course, and how is yours better?’” Cokos explained. “And it’s not saying that one’s better or not, it’s the idea that a lot of people have family, children and other things going on that a six-month program and the financial aspect of it, that might not be attainable. But when you give it a two-month program, they could change their life, their career, mindset, everything that they’re doing.
“That makes it available, and I think that makes it a phenomenal opportunity.”
The center’s program trains its students to draw blood, teaches anatomy and physiology and allows future assistants to work and obtain clinical hours while in training. Students also get lab experience at around day three of the program.
“A longer program, you might go in and for the first two months, you’re sitting in a classroom, no hands-on,” noted American Training Center’s president, Kimberly Rommen. “You’re learning med terms, you’re learning A&P (anatomy and physiology), at a level that medical assistants don’t really need, but here, by day three you’re in a lab, you’re learning how to take people’s blood pressure, you’re practicing it for eight week straight, so by the time you get out, you’re really good at it.
“It’s a really integrated program rather versus it being separate classes on different topics.”
Rommen and the center’s vice president Lorenzo McFadden, co-founded the facility about seven years ago. Though both have business and education backgrounds, they saw a need to support medical assistants.
“There was this need for people to work very quickly and not necessarily wait six to seven months (in training), said McFadden. “So what we looked at was how to really shrink that down. But we had to do that by working with the employers (Cooper Hospital and Virtua) and making sure they were really involved.”
Trinity Mcleod recently graduated from the program, recommended to her by a friend. While she had worked as a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) for nursing and has always been interested in the medical field, the center’s eight-week course allowed her to get a better feel for the job market. She hopes to become a nurse practitioner.
“I had other options, but I took this one because it aligned with the resources that I had, and I don’t regret it,” she stated. “I’m very happy that I made the choice to go this route, and it was a great experience. I would recommend other people to come here.”
The center graduated close to 200 students last year and was recognized for nurturing and training one third of the Certified Medical Assistant apprentices in New Jersey.
To learn more, visit https://amtrainingcenter.com/
