That so hopefully it's not a complete. Hopefully it's a good year. Some time I complete weather M Plus are 13 students signed up I we won't know till the end which ones are those that signed up actually log in.
It might know Megan. Can you see during the event who's logged in, you are love? Your love, love.
Good evening everybody. Welcome to chat that we're having this evening with Doctor Lynn Corbett. Corbett got it right good I'm so new. I have to second guess myself on these. My name is Andy Johnson. I'm the director of admissions at University Arkansas Fort Smith in my. Well, I don't know 2 1/2 months since I started so I'm still trying to get everything. Everything's name right the doctor parts easy part so that that helps but.
For those of you are out there tonight, we're glad that you joined us. Your opportunity to ask questions of Doctor Korbich or is infinite in the sense that you have access to the chat. So feel free to type in a question on the chat at any point in time. It's not. It's not rude, it's not interrupting. Go ahead and just if you have a question, throw that in there. Other than that, Doctor Korvic and I will just kind of talk and menu. Yeah, and you'll have a chance to learn along the way, but please do.
Interact through the chat so Doctor Korvic the first question I have is should be pretty easy, but what's the best part about being you these days? I was it being called doctor or is it having another name called Dean? Or is it something else? But what's what's good about being?
Everything is good about being me. Let me tell you, I am the interim Dean and I earn my pH. D12 years ago. I work in the best college on campus is the College of Health Science where we produce graduates from nursing from dental hygiene, from radiography, surgical technology and so we offer some EMT.
Megan Gabbard
07:02:24 PM
Hey guys! It is Megan! Let me know if you have questions during the presentation.
Horses, all the courses are professional courses and have the best staff. The best faculty on campus. They love students. We are heart is all about student success. And while you may have heard some things in the past, we have had a huge paradigm shift in the last couple of years and we just love our students. I myself I'm doing some advising this semester.
And so I am really getting to know those students. So to be adenan, advising, getting to talk with people.
I'm just I, it really doesn't get any better than that.
It's pretty cool. It sounds like it's a good time to be you. It is a great time.
It really is. Yeah, so one of the things that I think I know about your college. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but sometimes over here is our University bookstore at bookstore for those of you that are watching that haven't been in the bookstore. It's of course got books and all kinds of cool stuff, but also has uafs gear and clothing and stuff. But it has scrubs and things like that, and I see students walking in there sometimes buying scrubs and I was little jealous. I think that would be really cool if I could.
Ty Carter
07:04:04 PM
I'm looking into the radiology program and I was wondering if you could apply to the program when you are taking courses or does all the pre-classes have to be finished first?
Where that, but what type of student is it on campus? I think they're part of your college that would wear those scrubs. And why do they? Why do they wear him or they for one, the scrub is kind of the universal tier for medical personnel and over in our college were color coordinated. So if your Navy blue and you see somebody walking by a Navy blue scrub, you know it's a nursing student. OK, and if it is
Hermia charcoal Gray, you know surgical technology. An if it's Royal blue, you know it's radiography now. Those dental hygiene students. They pick their colors every year. They pick their whatever color the class wants to be. They pick their colors, but again, it's just that universal sign of.
I'm a medical professional. I wear scrubs and why do I wear scrubs instead of street clothes? Well, scrubs, one are very easily washed and you can get two or three pairs of them and basically recycle them. But I'm in the wash, wear them to clinical. You have to wear them to the laboratory on campus so it's just the universal sign of a medical professional. Now in these days of covid, we especially like our scrubs because.
You can get undressed in your garage. Leave your scrubs in the garage. We actually the dental students actually change their shoes before they leave. We are very very aware of Covid and trying to really encapsulate that and keep it out of our areas so.
They're easy to wash their comfortable. I used to say when I wore scrubs all the time, I used to say I would get up in the morning, get out of my pajamas, go to work, and put my pajamas back on.
Megan Gabbard
07:06:13 PM
They do not have to be completed when you apply to the program, but must be completed before beginning the program.
Is there so comfortable? Yeah, that's what I always think they look. They look comfortable and it's kind of neat to have you know, professional attire is comfortable, but also lets people know in these days. Of course, with kovid you're not only learning how to teach appropriately students, but but really, medical professionals are really frontline, and so you know, it's it's helpful. I've I see people wearing that now on one of my first thoughts is thank you, almost like like you would with with an officer or somebody like that, yeah?
Thank you for for doing that. We do have a question that's coming online right now. That's great we have and maybe one after that. But the first one is the student asked you all prereqs need to be complete.
We did before applying for the programs, specifically radiography radiography.
The answer to that is no. You can be in your last semester prior to entering any of our programs, but they have to be in progress.
So in radiography, I'm not as familiar with that curriculum as I am others, but say if you had to have chemistry you could be in chemistry and apply for that program.
But should have by the time the application process is complete, you're done with that course, so you can be in progress, but you can't have anything outstanding, excellent, thank you, and it looks like perhaps we had a written response as well. From Megan Gabert, who is senior admissions officer with this. That's good, so we if you're on there and you have a chat question, will get it to Doctor Korbich will try to get it on the screen as well. So we want to get answers to those questions.
As often and as accurately as as we can. So thank you, so I'm going to just jump right in here 'cause I just talked about applications. Yeah, and each program one is very competitive, generally two to three times the applications that we do have slots, so that's very competitive to get in. So my sage advice to anybody who wants to get into a health professions is go for the A.
Getting that a especially in your chemistry, anatomy, Physiology, microbiology, those are all four credit hour.
Total four credit hour courses. So if you get the A and there it just counts a little bit heavier than than your three hours of other courses. So that's really important. That's awesome. I'm really new and I didn't. I didn't. I studied English so I'm trying to learn a whole lot, but there may be some students out there that are wondering this. So do they need to apply to those programs before they when they apply to the University or do they start at the University and then maybe in there?
3rd semester or something like that. Then they apply. So how does that timing work? That's correct they they have to apply to the University first. Get admitted to the University. Take whatever prerequisite coursework is required and then they make application generally the semester before you're due to start. For instance in nursing, if you wanted to start in in the fall, your application would be due on.
March 1st, so it's a semester before. Remember you can be in progress in some of your courses, but you have to have all that coursework completed.
The application is twice in the nursing, once the fall March versus what I just said, but we also accept students for spring admission and that application deadline is October 1st. So as at October 1st and it's always the semester before you planning on starting an, I gotta tell you, you guys, it's really important to honor that date. We've had a couple of people coming on October 2nd.
October 6 and those applications will go into the next application cycle, so it's a hard cutoff date. The only time where we might look at it is if the first falls on a Saturday or a Sunday, and then it's the next working day, so.
And is it are those all separate applications per program, or is there one general application, separate application per program? And yes, we're getting into the 20th century by this January. That's going to be online.
For doing away with the paper.
Every little, every little piece of paper that we can know from yeah helps a lot. Yeah, that way we don't have to worry about any applications being mislaid. Being in this officer, that office, it's all electronically managed, so the application deadlines for the dental hygiene program that's May 15th.
Ann for Radiology is also May 15th Ann for surgical technology. It's April 15th, so remember, those are hard and fast. Deadline under those deadlines on our website. Absolute problem. Yeah, they can always go to your college site and poke around and see all those. That's it's always helpful. It's hard to remember, but right yeah, but so competitive program very competitive program apply on time. Apply on time. Go for those Asian bees.
I have to tell people who have gotten to see in chemistry. Maybe you'll get in, maybe you won't. If you got a lot of A's to balance that out, that helps, but if you get a lot of CS
sometimes people have to end up retaking those, and we do take the most recent grade.
Megan Gabbard
07:11:49 PM
https://health.uafs.edu/
Look at that. Alright, yeah, so I'm going to switch gears a little bit alright question so.
Are you? Do you ever go to the dentist or the doctor somewhere in town for yourself and find one of your students there who's working on you? Or do you have any stories like that about coming across students in the field? After you've, well, I like you a new theory. OK, well, so if you had been here for some time, so if I had been here for some time, there is absolutely no doubt that we would run in process student.
Now my dental hygienist did graduate from here. Yeah, so many years ago, but just did. She graduated from here.
When the nursing faculty go into the hospitals, they're always seeing our previous graduates always there all over. And hey, how's it going? It's good to see you. What are you doing with your career? What are your next steps? So we're very connected with their students. Very, very, very connected. I work really hard at remembering students names, but I only have about 300 to remember. Only right? Yeah, and they just about the time you get to know them.
Yeah, yeah exactly so. With all the you know with our programs and then all the medical areas in town or health professions, I assume there's really good opportunities for internships or jobs or professional networking. How to? How do your students integrate with with the workforce while there still students with regard to radiology, they all have jobs before they graduate an that before you heard that right before they graduate. They all have jobs.
In radiology, and that's because of all the rotations that they do, they go to the place that they like the most and they all have jobs before they graduate. Dental hygiene. Very similar. Now, dental hygiene students tend to be a little bit more spread out. We take from a multi County area and certainly not all from Sebastian or Crawford County. Many, many areas well into Oklahoma so they don't always have jobs when they graduate.
But they always have jobs if they want jobs within three months of graduation. Wow, so nursing about half of the students have jobs before they graduate and then the other half are mostly waiting because by the time we do our three month survey for nursing, everybody who wants a job has a job. So job placement in any one of our programs is never a problem, never a problem.
In fact, they are welcomed with open arms wow.
That's good to know. That's why you know being new and how long have you been here for? It's just two years. Yeah, two years sounds like a long time somebody like me but but I haven't had a lot of interactions with the hospital environment, which is a good thing, but it is.
Why did I I I found a doctor and met went to the doctor for the first time. You know to get everything set up and I take some medications making sure that and so I was talking to when I couldn't at first the.
Somebody came in and was talking to me. Turns out she's a student here at UA, Fort Smith and in the air like.
she wasn't the doctor, but she was going to study to be like. Nurse practitioner is practitioner ago and I didn't know she just came in and I thought, you know, once I was talking to her and telling her nice kind of dress like this. Probably the exact same whatever she retired so we were talking and I said I worked. I just started it and she said, oh I I go to school there. That's amazing. 'cause you got this job and you know and she was working her way. She was doing that at the clinic and then after that she did a great job. I did you know and then and then and then?
Then the doctor came in and said, I've looked at everything and it was really interesting for me right there to meet somebody who is a student at yeah UA Fort Smith and she asked me if I could get her a mask. So next time I go and system bring are one of our branded masks. But anyways, I I met one of your students by, you know, going to the doctor. I thought this made me feel good like alright, there are students are making an impact.
Back on my life 'cause she got it right.
What do you what are? What are some of the stories right now that you hear from your faculty? As far as like ways that they're interacting with stewed?
Maybe during covid to kinda help students adjust to the learning process or ways that they are adapting with kind of this new, hopefully not forever normal, but the new way to learn right now. So like I said, I have the opportunity to do a lot of advising now and I'm loving that an I always ask how's it going? Tell me about your semester. What are the good things? What are the bad things at and consistently I'm hearing?
Wow, those nursing faculty are really going above and beyond. They're doing everything they can. They post slides. They have discussions. They have an interactive discussion. The way the nursing classes are working now is they are being held at the same time that they normally would have been in a face to face environment. But it's through collaborate so it's all over the Internet. So this faculty is still doing the presentation. You're still seeing the slides.
You're still seeing the faculty lead the discussion, but.
But it's all. It's all online. They interact very much the way we are with questions, and then they'll have an open mic time when everybody just pitches in and asks questions. So that's really the way most nursing courses are going. Is that as that interactive? They call it synchronous online. There's a couple of pure online classes. Those were online anyway, so but the challenge with the nursing classes is we set 60.
And pre covid we had rooms that I could put 60 people in but post kovid my room that held 60 now holds 25. Yeah yeah yeah so doesn't work for group of 60. So rather than having multiple sections with maybe some inconsistencies we just decided one section. Same time on line. OK so nobody nobody's in the classroom except the professor. While the professor can be in the class in his or her office, but that's just nursing now. The smaller programs.
Dental hygiene in radiography and surgical technology. Because of the size of those programs between 1618 and 20 students, we are able to accommodate those classes in a face to face environment, so those students haven't missed a beat. Yeah, they just have not missed a beat because they have now taken over those big classrooms where they can socially distance right? Yeah, so, but here's a, for instance, one of the things our faculty member.
One of the nursing faculty member dead is one of the last skills that the second semester nursing student learns is how to put in an Ivy into the vein and.
And it takes a lot of manual dexterity, takes a lot of getting used to, and what what the nursing faculty did was she had a drive through Ivy Catheter administration where she gave out the Ivy catheters as the students drove through so the students could take them home and work with them. So I mean that faculty Member gave up her time so the students could do this, drive through and.
She's having her second drive through, I think tomorrow, so those who didn't pick him up on Friday could have it on another day. So just lots of things to accommodate. You know what? We just need to do well, I know, I know your your college, there's so much hands-on work and lab work that I know that that can be a challenge. Now I know you got a really beautiful building on campus. Walk past the outside. I haven't been in yet, but we need to make an appointment to make that happen.
What when I go in for the first time? What kind of labs and things will I see and what kind of hands-on learning opportunities are there for students in your beautiful new building? It's a beautiful building an you call it new, but it's actually, I think, 14 years old. But you wouldn't know it older you get 14.
Doing that, we take really good care of our building. It's a three story building with a center atrium that goes all the way up with beautiful lighting and not this year not kovid, but at Christmas time at knocks your socks off. It really does. It's so beautiful, but back to the laboratory space on the 1st floor we have a 15 seat dental operatory. Picture yourself going to the dentist.
And there's 15 seats. There's four pods.
Al mostly four chairs per pod. One of 'em has three. Then there's a dental X Ray room, and then we're getting a portable dental X Ray so it looks just like you're going to the dentist office, just like it. You know with the lights, and then they don't have the drills 'cause dental hygiene. They don't do drills, but they do that aerosol and the cleaning in the water and so, and you can make your own appointment.
For extremely reasonable price, wait, wait, WAIT, wait, I could go get my teeth clean even what about during kovid? I still don't know if I can do that. Yes, absolutely. Alright yeah I have to call it and see call. Absolutely. It's welcome to all students. Anybody who is in need. You can have insurance or not. Obviously your appointments are going to take a little bit longer 'cause the students are learning, but anybody is welcome to make an appointment.
And I want to say heard me, I want to say it's $25.
Liliana Pelayo
07:23:02 PM
How many student are accepted into the dental program?
It's a really, really. And then if you have children, I think it's 10 and seniors. It might be 20 then you're helping research. I mean you're getting a good deal. You getting your teeth cleaned and letting some students. Yep, get a starter. Yeah, that's pretty cool. So it's really neat, so that's on the 1st floor.
We have on the 2nd floor we have 3.
Skills Laboratories, each one of these laboratories, has 10 beds. Each bed has a mannequin in it.
And that's where students learn how to perform what's called an assessment, assessment, or looking at someone very specifically, is the foundation of nursing. Knowing how to listen to the heart, listen to the lungs looking somebody's eyes, ears, nose, all the nerves. That's the foundation of nursing. So we spend a lot of time on nursing assessment.
So we have three laboratories for that on the 2nd floor, most of the classroom, about half the classrooms are on the 2nd floor and on the third floor dynomite laboratory. It's the radiology laboratory where it's just like going to radiography, you know, in the hospital with the big machines.
We have a surgical operatory in there were students learn how to pass instruments and so the third floor and the nursing laboratory on the third floor has high Fidelity simulators.
Think there's seven of them, three or pediatric for our adult, where the faculty actually work through situations that are very real to life. The mannequins have heartbeats, and they talked to you, and they breathe an.
Liquid and solid come out of every space that could possibly come out of a human.
And it's all very realistic, very realistic, and so when a student gives a medication, especially Ivy that might affect the respiratory rate. Respiratory rate modifies itself based on the medication or the heart rate or whatever function that it's supposed to. So that's a high Fidelity simulation. This is a great opportunity for students to learn things that they can't.
Consistently see in the hospital, right? For instance, somebody immediately having a heart attack. They might have a take care of them after they've had their heart attack, but as soon as they're having a heart attack, what do I do? What do I assess? We also have a birthing laboratory where where are mannequin has a baby?
Maybe for me, but it's very high tech. Yeah, it is very very high tech and then I didn't know that existed too.
To further augment learning, we have high Fidelity virtual simulation where it's kind of like avatars, and so there's situations that the students work through and the avatars react. So we have the virtual simulation. We have the high Fidelity simulation, and quite honestly, it just doesn't get any better than that. Wow, so.
And in our in our ultrasound laboratory we actually can do ultrasounds and we get pregnant moms to come in and volunteer. And so it just doesn't get much better than the Health Science building for building real to life simulations. Now now I want to sign in.
Megan Gabbard
07:27:15 PM
16 a year for dental hygiene
Kenzie Hutchins
07:27:29 PM
Other than getting good grades, what other steps do you recommend future students do to prepare to get accepted into the nursing program?
See if you guys are out there. Haven't been in to take a tour. We can probably still set that up if you going online we can. We can find a way to take students through in smaller groups. Small groups. Absolutely happy to do it very good. Would you have a question that came in? So yeah and somebody is asking how many students are accepted into the dental Hygiene Program 1616 sixteen once a year. Once a year 16. OK, so how many applicants in order to 50? Yeah OK.
That is not to discourage you, please don't be discouraged because the application process is competitive within that applicant group. So if the applicant group the average GPA is a 3.0.
That's OK if the average is 3.6 at your only compared to the applicant group. You don't have to meet, you know a 3.8 minimum or anything like that. So do you ever have students who would apply once and not get in and then apply? Yes and maybe they do get in there right? OK, Yep, alright, not at all uncommon. And we've got guide to dental hygiene students too, so I know it's predominantly female.
Much like nursing, but we do have more males now entering into dental hygiene.
We have another question that came up on the chat which is great. We have a couple minutes left so I'm glad people are getting those time flies doesn't my gosh now we've just been sitting here in front of the fireplace so wonderful so we've been asked. Other than getting good grades, what other steps do you recommend future students do to prepare to get accepted into nursing and nursing? Well, that's that's primarily what we use for admission for nursing.
Ty Carter
07:28:51 PM
Where do you go to sign up for a tour of the health science building?
For some of the other programs, you have to take the PSB test. Nursing does not use that Anne for dental hygiene. You go and visit. Dental offices are really really good way to get immersive in nursing is to be a CNA certified Nurse assistant.
Last thing, it's just breaks my heart when a student comes into the program, they work so hard and they get into the first semester of nursing is kind of like, oh, I don't want to do that and you know they've had their hearts set in nursing and let me tell you.
You know, it's kind of scary to be a nurse right now during covid, but it's also in.
Credibly rewarding just incredibly rewarding, so do well in those science courses and hang in there. Be persistent.
But if you really, really are interested in nursing.
Go out there and be a CNA to make sure that you can talk to people and touch people and.
Do those kinds of things alright? Well, we had another question pop up and I don't. I have no idea the answer to it. I'm hoping either Megan gathered in the chat or you can answer this and maybe I open this up, but as soon as asking where do they go to sign up for a tour of the Health Science building, you know? I don't know Megan.
I'm new enough that I'm not sure how that works, so I know there are some new students.
We do Tours Tour day at 10 and two of campus, but I'm not sure how to answer. You know, from there to one of two a tour of the building.
Megan Gabbard
07:30:55 PM
email me megan.gabbard@uafs.edu a day you might want to come and I will set you up
Yes, I am very very very willing to do whatever I need to to help somebody get it to work. I think one way that they can always work is so if you're out there, you're wondering, contact the admissions office and just ask and say you know what I would really love it too or an we will do everything. We will set that up individually so I don't think right now there may not be a place online to sign up for those, but if you if you contact the admissions office and indicate interest.
We'll be happy to help you out with you, you know, and here's, these are all ways by parting recommendations to anybody who's looking for any Health Science program is when you are looking at specific programs in different schools. Ask the intelligent questions. There's three intelligent questions we touchdown. One of 'em is you employment rate? What is your employment rate in all of our Health Science programs?
It's 100% of people who want to work now. Not everybody wants to go straight to work, and that's OK. You don't have to, but everybody who wants to work has a job. There's also a professional examination that needs to be taken for every professional.
or career with a professional license and what is that pass rate? Extremely important question for radiography.
100% alright. For dental hygiene. 100% surgical technology is about 80% OK. Nursing is 91%. That's really great. So you have to ask that question. What is your pass rate and the other really really intelligent question is.
Of those students who start, how many finish? That's called the completion rate, and you want your completion rate to be as close to 100% as it possibly can be. So if you get a hundred 100 and hundred thing, your scores 300 OK, so that's the magic score that you look for. So regardless of where you want to go or what you want to be, just make sure you ask those intelligent questions. Strive for that 300.
So our programs are surgical technology, program, radiography, and dental. They're all really close to 300, and nursing is probably about 270 national average for nursing. You know what? We don't keep track of that? Yeah, yeah.
But it's a really good score, so be smart and ask those questions and go with the 300. Alright, well, we've gone a little bit overtime. Thank you for sticking with us after Korvic. Thanks for coming absolutely evening with us. You know you could have been doing a whole bunch other thing, yeah?
Love students. I absolutely loved ones and I will especially love stone so when they get back to campus, that's right. We will at some point. Yeah yeah. Thank you so much for the see my pleasure. My pleasure. Thanks for joining and asking questions. Good luck as you think your way through the journey into the right school in the right program. Yeah, goodnight, goodnight.