Paramedic program among Lethbridge Polytechnic’s new offerings this fall

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on July 19, 2024.

Lethbridge Polytechnic photo by Rob Olson Students take care of a "patient" as part of an exercise during a past semester. Lethbridge Polytechnic will soon be offering its own Primary Care Paramedic program.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

Lethbridge Polytechnic will be offering new programs starting this fall and winter semesters including its own Primary Care Paramedic program, General Arts and Science program and various trade certificates.

Marko Hilgersom, registrar at Lethbridge Polytechnic, explained that the PCP program has been offered at LP before but under the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology’s curriculum and those who graduated from the program in the past did so with a NAIT diploma.

“We’re excited to offer for the first time our own PCP program. It will begin on January 2025 and applications are open now. NAIT has been great to work with, but now we have the recognized curriculum so students will get all the accreditation and certifications that they need with it,” said Hilgersom.

He said this way those taking the program will be Lethbridge Polytechnic students, learning from Lethbridge Polytechnic instructors.

“We’re excited about that and hopefully that’s just the beginning and even do the advanced care paramedic one day,” said Hilgersom.

When talking about the various trades certificates, Hilgersom said they used to have pre-employment non-credit certificates for trades like electrical, carpentry, power line technician, welding and plumbing which is called pipe trades, but now they are offering credited certificates for them.

“We moved those to the credit world so by that we had to submit our curriculum to government and I was approved as certificate programs. That change makes it a little bit easier for students to get student loan funding and things like that,” said Hilgersom.

He said this is meant for students that are thinking about working in the trades but might not have the current job or sponsorship to be able to enter the apprenticeship program.

“This way they can get all their coursework done, the theory and then we set them up with work integrated learning so they have a connection to the industry before they are done with us and then it’s up to them to get their hours for apprenticeship,” said Hilgersom.

He said the certificate programs for trades will begin in September 2024 with the exception of pre-carpentry which will begin in January 2025 and the pre-electrical and pre-welding certificate programs are already full.

“One of the advantages for us to make it a credit program is now our dual credit program that we offered to high school students to be able to take college classes and also get credit for them at college and their home institution, will allow all these courses to help towards their high school diploma,” said Hilgersom.

Additionally, the Centre for Business, Arts and Sciences has been given approval by Alberta Advanced Education to offer three new one-year certificate programs within the General Arts and Science area of programming that include the General Arts and Science certificate, which offers students a flexible option for self-discovery and career development and allows them to customize their course load to suit their unique goals and interests.

The General Arts and Science (Science Pathway) certificate, a program that focuses on a curriculum in science for those wanting to transfer into the second year of a science diploma or degree program. And the General Arts and Science (Kinesiology) certificate, for students interested in pursuing a qualification in kinesiology. It offers courses with transfer credits to diploma and degree programs at other post-secondary institutions.

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