New River CTC Now Accepting Applications For Paramedic Course In May

Lewisburg, WV – New River Community and Technical College already has a well established nursing program that includes a successful Pocahontas County cohort. Another medical course offered by the college gives those already trained as EMT’s the chance to improve not only their medical skills, but also their earning potential. A Paramedic course will be taught at the Greenbrier Valley campus in Lewisburg beginning this May. Rich Bernhardt, Paramedic Program Coordinator for the school says Paramedics are always in demand.

“Southern Virginia has a great demand for paramedics, a lot of the paramedics and intermediate emt’s national certification end up moving out of the area, so the attrition is high,” he says. ” Here in southern West Virginia, it’s particularly high because of the other locations in the area, Virginia North Carolina and Ohio; a lot of people who get their national certification will move to those areas for the higher pay scale.”

He describes the program offered by New River.

“The paramedic certificate program involves 42 hours of course work over three semesters,” says Bernhardt. “The prerequisites for this program are you have to be an EMT Basic with we prefer at least a year’s experience. The cost for the paramedic program by the time you do the student fees, three semesters and books is in the neighborhood of $6000.00.”

He says New River does offer financial aid.

“With being certificate courses, they meet the requirement for financial aid,” he says. “When a student applies here, we encourage them to fill out the FASFA form online; and what the FASFA does, it tells the student what they’re eligible for as far as grants, financial aid and what have you.”

The average salary for a Paramedic based on Bureau of Labor statistics ranges from $33,000.00 to around $40,000.00 per year; and adding in the number of overtime hours that many paramedics work, that number can reach as high as $50,000.00. Bernhardt says none of the classes are currently available through the One Room University site in Marlinton.

For more information about the Paramedic program at New River, please contact Rich Bernhardt at 304-929-5003 or Rich Ball at 304-793-3004.

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Heather Niday

Heather is our Program Director and Traffic Manager. She started with Allegheny Mountain Radio as a volunteer deejay. She then joined the AMR staff in February of 2007. Heather grew up in the Richmond, Virginia, area and now lives in Arbovale, West Virginia with her husband Chuck. Heather is a wonderful flute player, and choir director for Arbovale UMC. You can hear Heather along with Chuck on Tuesday nights from 6 to 8pm as they host two hours of jazz on Something Different.

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