Iryanna Rodriguez will soon be earning her certification as a patient care technician.

“I've always wanted to be a nurse,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve always liked taking care of patients, I like how you feel; you feel good."

The 19-year-old has been receiving the necessary training to become a nurse thanks to the Cameron County Education Initiative. The non-profit career school trains students for in-demand careers such as the medical field.

According to the school’s CEO, the demand for healthcare workers in Cameron County is so high that phones have been ringing off the hook with doctors asking for help.

“I get calls every day and emails from the clinics looking for students who are either finishing or are already finished,” Cameron County Education Initiative Executive Director Rita Hernandez said. “There's a massive demand right now, but the good news is that those physicians and those clinics are reaching out and asking not only ‘Who do you have?’, but ‘How can we help you grow?’ and that's the most important part."

One of the physicians relying on students who complete their training through CCEI is Dr. Asim Zamir, who said the medical field first started seeing hospital staff shortages at the start of the pandemic.

“At that time, we had enough staff to handle 200, but we didn't have enough employees to handle 300, 400, 500 patients coming to the door,” Zamir, chief of pediatrics for Valley Baptist Medical Center, said. 

Zamir said his staff is being stretched thin handling pediatric flu and other respiratory illnesses. More than 200 sick patients have been coming into his clinic on a daily basis, Zamir added.

“When this surge happened, we were seeing twice the amount of people that we use to see,” Zamir said. “We need twice the number of employees that we have, and we don't have it.”

Thanks to the CCEI program, eight more people were added to the clinic’s staff.

For more information on the program, call 956-525-7278 or email rhernandez@myccei.org