Afghan group takes tour of SCC
Visiting educators form partnership to receive medical equipment operation training program
Trained technicians are in such short supply across Afghanistan that workers have to be brought in from Pakistan and Turkey to keep sophisticated medical equipment operating properly.
Spokane Community College might be able to help.
Afghan educators have spent this week in Spokane touring both community college campuses and putting the finishing touches on a new international partnership designed to help improve workforce training in the war-torn nation. Of particular interest to the delegation is SCC’s biomedical equipment technician program, one of just 10 in the United States.
“We don’t have experience with community colleges,” said Nooria Atta, of Kabul Medical University. “We want to see how they operate and if we can adapt it to our own circumstances.”
Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the trip also includes a tour of Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center. Next week, the group will visit medical facilities in Seattle as well as a handful of Western Washington community colleges and Microsoft Corp.
Shirinaqa Zarif, chancellor of Kabul Medical University, said Afghanistan’s higher education system primarily consists of traditional four-year universities. Efforts are underway to develop more workforce training programs similar to the two-year technical education programs offered primarily by America’s community colleges.
Currently, much of Afghanistan’s technical workforce is from nearby countries, Zarif said.
Later this year, the U.S. agency will send SCC biomedical engineering instructor Steve Wilson to Afghanistan to review progress on that country’s efforts. Biomedical equipment technician is expected to be the first associate’s degree offered in Afghanistan, Zarif said.
The SCC program, which takes just over two years to complete, is part of the school’s electronics department and prepares students for careers maintaining and repairing advanced medical equipment. It’s heavily focused on practical application of what students learn in the classroom.
“The American style of teaching is more applied, more hands-on,” explained Lisa Avery, vice president for strategic partnerships at Community Colleges of Spokane. “What we’re doing is basically training the trainer.”
Among the SCC program’s graduates is Yari Sidiqi, an Afghani native who fled during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and immigrated to the United States as a refugee.
After losing a job in the hospitality industry in 2004, he learned about the biomedical technician program while at his dentist’s office and graduated in 2006. He had studied engineering in Kabul before fleeing.
“I’m loving it,” said Sidiqi, who now is responsible for maintaining all of the medical equipment for Trios Health, which operates the hospital and other facilities in Kennewick. “I’ve had a lot of other jobs but biomedical technician is the best I’ve ever had.”
The prospect of his U.S. alma mater helping improve conditions in his native Afghanistan was welcome news to Sidiqi.
“They picked the best program in the country to come to and learn from,” he said. “I’m going to do everything I can to help out.”