Filling the Healthcare Workforce Gap Through Medical Assisting in Newark
America’s labor shortage is especially hard-hitting for the healthcare industry, where concerns are growing about post-COVID burnout and other factors leading to gaps in physicians, nurses, and many other personnel.
Building and filling a more diverse and highly skilled pipeline for the medical profession is a top national priority, and Propel America is an important post-secondary education program serving as a catalyst for change.
Propel’s fellowship program recruits and trains recent high school graduates for medical careers, starting as medical assistants, sterile processing technicians, and behavior technicians in locations across the country. These positions can serve as springboards to career pathways in nursing and other healthcare specializations.
Qua’eesa Conley-Davis, Propel Fellow (Fall ‘22 cohort)
One of our recent fellows, Qua’eesa Davis-Conley, is a newly hired certified medical assistant with RWJ Barnabas Health, in Newark, NJ.
“One of the highlights of my class was the relationships. We still keep in touch with each other. ”
Qua’eesa began her training with Propel in the Fall 2022 cohort. She already had some experience as a direct care professional, but she did not have the certification she needed to cross the finish line, obtain a job as a medical assistant, and advance her career.
Through Propel, she acquired weekly, in-person clinical skills lab training, professional development, an externship, and one-on-one coaching support.
Qua’eesa described some of the highlights of her experience. One was the camaraderie she developed with her classmates: “We still keep in touch with each other.”
And she praised her Propel Success Coach, Hassan Munford, noting that he “was there for us the whole time.’ She added, “He’s a great coach, he always supported us. On any questions we had, if he didn’t know the answer, he found the answer for us.”
“Coach Hassan was there for us the whole time. He’s a great coach, he always supported us. On any questions we had, if he didn’t know the answer, he found the answer for us.”
Qua’eesa’s supervisor for her Propel externship was impressed by her professionalism and skills. She described her as “super friendly, punctual, and knowledgeable.” She said, “Qua’eesa has a go-getter mentality. She knows how to take and enter vitals for, and fully triage, each patient. We love her; she is amazing.”
Qua’eesa did find it challenging to juggle her full-time work schedule with her Propel coursework and training. She had to switch from working a day shift, 7-3, to evening shifts, Monday through Friday, while also attending her Propel externship.
But as she recently told a new cohort of incoming fellows at a recent Newark, NJ orientation event: “It was worth it.”
Qua’eesa finished her Propel externship in February, and was hired a few weeks later, in mid-March, by RWJ Barnabas Health, just 5 miles from her home.
For Qua’eesa, and hundreds of other fellows, the Propel program enabled her to leave a low-paying, short-term job for a far more rewarding career path with a leading employer in the medical profession.
“I got a job as a medical assistant at an internal medicine office RWJ Barnabas. I finished my externship at the end of February and I got hired in the beginning of March. ”
Propel’s jobs-first higher education model is expanding horizons for young people like Qua’eesa, who are talented, bright, and ambitious, but unconvinced that a four-year college degree program is the best fit for them at this juncture in their lives.
Propel is helping to fill critical gaps in our healthcare workforce, with more diverse and more talented personnel. The organization has successfully equipped nearly 400 fellows with in-demand skills, and plans to enroll nearly 300 more in 2024.
And Qua’eesa is paying it forward, referring friends and family to apply to become a fellow at Propel. One of them has just enrolled in the Fall 2023 cohort.
Employer partners are benefitting from Propel’s work to identify, recruit and train ambitious, hard-working and talented young people just like Qua’eesa, who want to further their career in their communities.
Watch: In this Instagram post, Qua’eesa describes her experience in Propel America’s fellowship program.
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