Training Homegrown Healthcare Professionals

Photo courtesy of UH Maui College, Molokai.

When Olelo Schonely Spencer at UH Maui College Molokai launched a Clinical Medical Assistant (CMA) certification cohort program last year, she thought a couple of people might sign up.
“We didn’t really think we’d have nine right out of the gate,” said Schonely Spencer, who works as the college’s Career and Technical Education program coordinator. “[We thought] oh, just a couple, you know, just to kind of see if this is going to work. And it kind of exceeded all of our expectations.”
Those nine residents just received their certifications for free, made possible through a partnership with Good Jobs Hawaii. They are Piikea Hanaoka, Misty Kahale, Tanya Kamakeaiana, Kapua Kehano, John Allan Arista, Alisha Gramberg, Cindy Ledesma, Teri-Lee Phifer and Mililani Rawlins.
“This is the first cohort for our Maui campus in general, and we were just lucky enough to have it on Molokai,” said Schonely Spencer.
It’s all part of an effort to train Molokai residents as medical professionals to increase healthcare capacity on island and foster jobs here at home.
“We want to improve patient care. We want to increase patient load. We want to have homegrown healthcare workers,” she said.
The new CMAs were already employed at Molokai General Hospital and Na Pu’uwai, and the training they just received will increase their skills. Before launching the program, the college based the courses on local needs.
“We talked to all the different community partners and [they] came back that they would definitely be interested if we could bring a medical assistant program here, that they would want their employees to basically up-skill,” Schonely Spencer explained. “Because we don’t have any certified medical assistance in any of our primary care facilities right now, up until this course.”
While UH Maui College Molokai has offered popular nurse aid courses in the past, CMAs often have a greater range of responsibilities. They support physicians by performing administrative and clinical tasks, like preparing exam rooms, administering vaccines, taking patient vitals, and collecting and examining labs. The recently-certified residents also learned EKG, blood drawing, and injection training.
“This partnership has significantly enhanced the quality of care at our Rural Health Clinic by advancing clinical skills, improving patient safety, enhancing the patient experience, increasing operational efficiency, and fostering professionalism and accountability,” said Punahele Alcon, Molokai General Hospital Director of Outpatient and Business Services.
Schonely Spencer said looking at job needs on Molokai, healthcare pathways showed the “biggest gap.” The college has tailored many recent offerings to fill that gap.
“It grew from a workforce need and evolved into something so much more than we could have hoped so,” she said of the CMA opportunity. “And we’re super proud of the students, because they work really hard to learn all of the learning objectives to actually sit for the exam.”
Schonely Spencer herself became a proctor to administer the exam on Molokai so students wouldn’t have to travel off-island for certification through the National Healthcareer Association.
And more healthcare training opportunities are coming at the college.
Starting this month, the UH Molokai campus is launching its first practical nursing cohort. It’s a hybrid program that will allow students to complete coursework and clinical rotations on island, while traveling to Maui just once a semester.
“We’ll have our first cohort of practical nurses at the end of 2025 so I feel like these are all stepping stones for us to be able to offer more like higher level health training or health programs,” said Schonely Spencer.
She said her goal is to eventually bring a hybrid Registered Nurse training program to Molokai so residents won’t have to uproot their families to pursue their careers.
“It’s about wanting our homegrown healthcare workers to be able to have jobs in our communities,” she said.