Sarah Clark
In the middle of an interview, the administrative assistant at Emergency Medical Training Professionals steps in to tell Assistant Director Sarah Clark that there’s a problem—one of the phlebotomy students thinks she may be having her baby right then and there. Clark, who also teaches paramedic classes, calmly snaps into action: “Is she having contractions? How far apart are they? Does she have someone who can drive her to the hospital?” The assistant runs off to find out. Clark shrugs, laughing: “And this is what it’s like to be the person in charge.”
The leadership role comes naturally to Clark, just as it did for her mother, Gerria Berryman, when she founded EMTP in 2007. When she started the business, Berryman had a modest goal: teach emergency medical technician classes for a few years to make some extra money and stay busy until retirement. But the business kept growing and has continued to do so with her daughter at her right hand.
Today, EMTP has expanded from two rooms in a multi-suite building on Red Mile Road to the entire basement and most of the first floor, with 22 instructors offering nearly two dozen certification courses, such as EKG technician and medical billing. Berryman is still active in the business, but day-to-day operations are led by Clark. Berryman’s son, Scott Robinson, is marketing director, and EMTP employs a small, dedicated team of support staff.
Berryman began her career as a paramedic in Washington County, where she was born and raised. She then worked in the Jessamine County EMS system for many years. In the late ’90s, Berryman heard that the Washington County EMS was in financial distress and was about to be taken over by a private company. She approached the program’s leaders and asked for 60 days to turn the EMS program around. Berryman also promised to help them find a private program herself if she wasn’t successful. “She wound up not only turning it around in 60 days but actually grew the service pretty decently over a couple of years,” Clark said.
Berryman began thinking about starting her own business to train EMTs—partly because of her entrepreneurial drive but also because she was concerned about the frequent burnout she saw in the profession and how it affected patient care. “She decided something had to change somewhere,” Clark said. “And what better way than to change it at the educational level?”
1 of 2
Katrina Bevins learns how to find a vein on fellow phlebotomy student Lataesha Priddy while instructor Devin Daniels supervises.
2 of 2
EMTP phlebotomy student Krystal Skaggs ties a tourniquet on classmate Chelsea Emmons as the students practice drawing blood.
Today EMTP offers classes across five areas of specialization—its School of EMS, School of Medical Assisting, a Dental Assistant Program, School of Nursing Assisting, and community training courses such as in CPR and first aid. EMTP’s focus is helping to prepare students for jobs in their chosen fields, as well as offering recertification courses.
Paying attention to job trends and listening to feedback from local doctors and universities has helped EMTP figure out where training needs are. They also look at accreditation requirements, as well as how the areas of expertise are growing locally and nationwide.
For example, because the Affordable Care Act reduced some Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates, many doctors sought ways to cut costs in areas that didn’t impact patient care. Medical transcription is one of those areas. Thanks to advances in speech recognition software, doctors often opt to compose their own notes. While EMTP is certified to teach medical transcription, they’ve never hosted a class in it “because it’s unethical to take a student’s money and know that they can’t get a job,” Clark said.
To be reimbursed for Medicare under the ACA, doctors must also have nationally certified medical assistants in their offices. This is problematic for doctors whose assistants have been trained on the job, “so, a lot of doctor’s offices, because they had really good employees, they sent them here to become ACA compliant so they can get paid,” Clark said.
Other employers have sent workers to EMTP for training, continuing education or recertification. Bluegrass Army Depot, for example, wanted their employees trained as EMTs so they could become first responders in the surrounding community, Clark said.
EMTP also recently partnered with an addiction treatment center to help EMTs and paramedics learn to treat overdosing patients in the most humane, productive way possible. After all, Clark said, when an EMT or paramedic revives a patient who has overdosed, “instead of being jaded and irritated with them, that might be [that person’s] first opportunity to hear about some recovery hope.”
While EMT and paramedic courses remain EMTP’s most popular programs, not many graduates end up working in ambulances these days. Increasingly, they’re finding jobs in hospital emergency departments, as trained EMT and paramedics are being hired for support roles once fulfilled by licensed practical nurses. This is especially true in hospitals seeking to maintain magnet status, Clark said. Magnet status is a designation given by the American Nurses Credentialing Center based on a set of criteria designed to measure the strength and quality of a facility’s nursing staff. One of those criteria is that all nurses at magnet hospitals must have at least a bachelor’s degree.
Currently, University of Kentucky HealthCare and Baptist Health Lexington are the only magnet hospitals in Lexington. “UK has a 23-hour hold ward on their ER, and that’s staffed by paramedics,” Clark said. A hold ward is a care unit for people who need monitoring for a few hours but don’t quite need to be admitted. “So, you’re just as likely, if you’re in that 23-hour hold, to see a paramedic with a nurse overseeing them than to see anyone else,” Clark said.
"If I have a class of 20 students]then I have 20 opportunities every single day to go out and touch and, hopefully, bring something to somebody who needs it.” —Sarah Clark
No matter where her students end up, Clark says it’s a privilege to teach them—and to get to know them and their career goals. “I enjoy just meeting different students and helping somebody go from maybe a lackluster career [into a field that fulfills them],” she said. It’s difficult to have much impact working one on one, “but if I have a class of 20 [students] then I have 20 opportunities every single day to go out and touch and, hopefully, bring something to somebody who needs it.”
Clark and EMTP are succeeding in that goal, according to student Chelsea Emmons. She said she loves taking classes there, and that it has been a supportive learning environment in helping her to achieve her goal of becoming a certified medical assistant. In particular, she loves “the great atmosphere and the quickness of the courses,” she said. Plus, “everybody’s so friendly, it’s like family here.”
Case in point: That student who went into labor during a phlebotomy class? A fellow student didn’t hesitate to offer her a ride to the hospital.