Kerry Barnard’s family has suffered the heartbreak of heart disease. He has lost many family members to the illness, including some who died suddenly at young ages. “Heart disease is the number one killer and I definitely wanted to do something about that,” Barnard said. During 22 years directing and supervising cardiopulmonary rehabilitation programs, Barnard has worked hard to help forward the field towards savings more lives. Now, as an instructor at Bryant & Stratto...

Kerry Barnard wants students to understand that as medical professionals, they will be bilingual. “The medical field has a language all its own,” he said. “For students to be successful, they’re going to have to be speaking to highly educated colleagues fluently in medical terminology.” That’s why in his class, AHLT100 Medical Terminology, he stresses that understanding a medical term on paper and being able to use it in conversation are two very different, ...

When a medical administrative assistant arrives at work each morning, they can be faced with gamut of tasks. These professionals can easily switch from administrative to clinical tasks throughout the day and their base of knowledge needs to be as wide as the field of duties they cover.   Two courses help medical administrative assistants to stretch their overall knowledge and prepare them to better assist patients and doctors, said Jessica Bland, supportive care nurse practitioner and Brya...

Gayle Cheeks-Harrell was a stickler for professionalism. As a career specialist who worked to help rehabilitate and prepare substance abuse patients to return to the workforce, she knew that how you looked on the outside was as important as what you knew on the inside. When she passed away last May, her son Eric Harrell, Virginia state director of marketing and communications at Bryant & Stratton College, wanted her legacy to live on. Today it does, through the Bryant & Stratton stude...

Before you can work in virtually any hospital office you need to know the basics of human anatomy. Is your job to schedule a procedure? Transcribe doctor’s notes? Code insurance paperwork? X-ray a patient? In virtually any scenario, if you don’t know the difference between a fibula and tibiofibular, or an ileum and an ilium, or prostate and prostrate, your day can be long and confusing. There is a very long list of medical terminology that sounds similar. In HCAS 133, Survey of Anat...

The career of medical coding is so much more than simply punching in numbers.   Those who code provide the communication between the doctor, the hospital and the insurance company. Every detail needs to be correct.   “This really is one of the most important jobs in the hospital,” said Tammy Weaver who teaches in Bryant & Stratton College’s coding and reimbursement program.   Coding is also one of the most lucrative careers in a hospital that does not requ...

As a child Tammy Weaver dreamed of being a brain surgeon. After entering nursing school, she quickly learned that the surgeons don’t necessarily have the most important job in the hospital. “Everything you do in the healthcare field is a big deal,” she tells her students. “Everything you do is important. Every person who works at the hospital has value.” Weaver started nursing school but moved to health administration. She earned her Bachelor’s degree fr...

Last semester, I turned in a paper that was well written and thorough, but I lost points for errors that had little to do with content or material and everything to do with avoidable mistakes. I lost a few points because I forgot to italicize something in my references page and a few because I had forgotten to address one specific parameter that had been described in the directions. My professor still gave my assignment a great grade, but I felt disappointed that I hadn’t paid enough atten...

After 30 years, Ronda Falcone says she is not an employee of Bryant & Stratton College. Rather, she is a member of an extensive, loving family. During her early days as an admissions officer she enrolled her first student at the College, Mary Brown. Falcone still receives an annual Christmas card from Brown and her family. “That speaks to the connection we have with our students,” Falcone said. “That works for me.” Falcone is celebrating 30 years with the univer...

The College was founded with the goal of providing practical workplace education. Many years later, Western New York remains the heart of Bryant & Stratton College home to three campuses (Amherst, Buffalo, and Orchard Park), the online division and the College’s Systems Office. Additionally, the College has 15 other campuses, across New York and in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Virginia. “For over 165 years, Bryant & Stratton College has continuously innovated to meet its constitue...