Healthcare Certificate?

[whittwhitt]

I was wondering if anyone else has the option of getting a Health Care Certificate at their college and knows how useful it is on a resume?

I attend Athens Technical College and can take 3 classes in the spring/summer to get the HCC, but was wondering how important completing it is and how much does it help in getting hired? The classes I'm thinking about taking which would give me the certificate are Intro to Healthcare, and two social work classes; Human Behavior/Social Environment, and Behavioral Health.

The way my adviser explained it to me, it's just another credential to add to your resume but it is not required. He said the Intro to Healthcare class would be helpful if I just wanted to take that class while waiting to apply for the Nursing program in August.

HOPE/Pell pay for all of my school costs, so another issue is using my HOPE money to go toward those classes when I could use it to do the LPN to RN bridge program in the future.

I was planning on using my spring and summer to study for the NLN-PN and get a part-time or full-time job (preferably HC related) since I've never worked anywhere before.

Obviously any extra healthcare classes would be helpful, but has anyone specifically had any benefits?

[direw0lf, BSN]

In my area at least certifications don't hold much weight at all including cna, pct, ekg, and phlebotomy. Experience counts..like if I had worked as a cna. But the cert alone doesn't mean much. My advisor told me a minor/major in biology or humanities will look better because humanities shows you're well balanced and biology can help if you're interested in research areas of nursing which I am.

I think your time would be better spent volunteering in a hospital imho unless you hear otherwise!

[sailornurse]

I'm confused, Are you an LPN? or waiting to start LPN since you are looking at Intro to health care class. Are you planning to do LPN then bridge to RN? IMO, you are wasting your time taking classes that will not apply to your nursing degree. If you can get your CNA and work as a CNA that might be more useful in terms of experience that is applicable to nursing. The local community college also offers phlebotomy, ekgs certs but unless you can use those to get a job, also not very useful.

[whittwhitt]

Ok, thank you!

[whittwhitt]

I'm confused, Are you an LPN? or waiting to start LPN since you are looking at Intro to health care class. Are you planning to do LPN then bridge to RN? IMO, you are wasting your time taking classes that will not apply to your nursing degree. If you can get your CNA and work as a CNA that might be more useful in terms of experience that is applicable to nursing. The local community college also offers phlebotomy, ekgs certs but unless you can use those to get a job, also not very useful.

Sorry for the confusion; I'm about to apply for the LPN program next fall 2016. The Intro to Healthcare isn't required for the LPN program (for some reason?), it's just an extra class you can take while waiting for the LPN program to start.

I'm wanting to become an RN eventually, but am going to wait until I get some more experience in healthcare before doing the bridge. I'm also wanting to live on my own and get a job as soon as possible, so I'm planning on doing the LPN-RN bridge when I'm older.

Thank you for the help! I think I'm going to spend next year getting some work experience volunteering instead of getting the HCC. I believe other healthcare students (in dental assisting, HIT, etc.) aren't concerned with getting it either.

[elkpark]

I agree that there's no point to taking additional classes that won't help you get done with your nursing degree. My first thought was that maybe this was a proprietary school and your advisor was just looking to make some extra money for the school, but I just checked the website and see that it appears to be a public school. Sure, the info you would get in those classes might be nice for you to have, but the certificate is not going to help you professionally.