APS creating tomorrow's nurses

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The Albuquerque Public School Career Enrichment Center's Practical Nursing Program continues to churn out the nurses of tomorrow.

The program started in 1981 helps high school students within APS learn about the medical field and get their practical nursing license when they graduate.

With New Mexico constantly facing a nursing shortage the program is helping build the state's work force.

Students can be accepted into the program their junior year and go through five semesters of training, which include everything from CPR to clinicals in the city's hospitals.

Students who go through the program say it is very demanding but worth it.

Program Director Jocelyn Amberg, a registered nurse, said all of the instructors are registered nurses, some of them graduates of the program themselves.

While some may think these teens are too young to do this type of thing, Amberg saai these are not your typical teenagers.

"Teenagers can do it," she said.  "It takes a special teenager who's good at time management, is organized and dedicated and cares about people, but they can do it."

Amberg says 100 percent of their students graduate from high school, and a majority also passes the test to get their practical nursing license.

The Career Enrichment Center also provides classes for cosmetology, building trades, computers and law enforcement. Demand for the classes is very high, students do have to test to get in.