DAYTON, Ohio (WKEF)– Immigrants who worked in the healthcare field in their home countries, now have a better way of continuing that work right here in the U.S. It’s all thanks to a new program by the Cross Over Community Development, which gives them hands-on training to set them up for success.

“We have such a shortage of nurses…and that started even before covid,” said Kimberly Bahl with Cross over CD.

That’s why Bahl said this new program is so important for the City of Dayton.

The new six-month Medical English Program provides language training to immigrants and refugees wanting to work in the medical field, so they can best serve local patients. Dr. Frances Igah broke down what participants can expect.

“This includes how to interact with patients, how to interact with coworkers, how to identify common body parts. We’re doing this all off the curriculum of a community health worker,” said Dr. Igah.

Participants will also get real-life healthcare scenarios and simulations. Bahl told Dayton 24/7 Now’s, Kysha Hancock in recent years, many nurses in the Dayton area have continued to advance in their careers, causing vacancies in bedside nursing, but this program will help bridge that gap.

“We have many nurses from Colombia, from Mexico, from Ukraine…and if we could just give them the English skills that they need to get on track to get reaccredited then that would be great,” said Bahl.

Igah said setting them up for success is the ultimate goal.

“it’s very broad, so they can go into any further education in the healthcare field because now they have the basic steps to go in it,” said Igah.

Registration for this program is already open. To learn more information and how to enroll, contact info@crossovercd.org.

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Originally published by WKEF.

Image attribution: Unsplash / Nappy (@nappystudio)