Its main goal being the creation of a high-quality educational ecosystem to match the new educational and professional reality, the John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation made a donation in 2023 to establish the Paramedics Training and Education Lab at the School of Higher Vocational Education of Argos aiming to modernise the school’s lab infrastructure and upgrade the quality of its educational services. Through this donation, the School acquired essential simulation tools for pre-hospital and clinical care, including a vacuum immobilisation mattress, a cardiograph, five trauma training manikins, a fully equipped immobilisation board, a tension pneumothorax training model, and a nursing care patient manikin. The Lab now fully meets the training needs of paramedical specialties such as “Paramedic – Ambulance Crew”, “Nursing Assistant”, and “Physical Therapy Assistant”.

For 30 years, the School of Higher Vocational Education of Argos has provided professional training services to secondary school graduates in the Argolis region, making it one of the country’s oldest Vocational Education Schools, while over the last 10 years, it has focused on Health and Welfare sector specialisations. With the approval of the General Secretariat for Vocational Education, Training, Lifelong Learning and Youth, the school developed an innovative and unique-in-Greece, freely accessible Training Guide (in Greek) for the “Paramedic – Ambulance Crew” specialisation. The donated equipment adheres to this guide’s specifications, positioning the School as a model educational centre for this field. In addition, as part of its community outreach, the School organises First Aid seminars for students, citizens, and trainers. The school’s efforts were recognized with the 1st prize (Gold Award) at the 2024 Educational Leaders Awards in the “Education – Outreach” category, under the subcategory “Outreach, Educational Visits & Experiential Learning in Public Lifelong Education”.

• It is estimated that through the Lab’s operation, 80 students will be trained each academic year, along with 20-30 healthcare professionals from collaborating nursing units and pre-hospital care providers in the region.

“Our initial goal was to maximise the training opportunities for students in the ‘Paramedic – Ambulance Crew’ specialisation, enabling them to practice the skills of their profession using modern simulators and lab equipment in a supervised, safe, and repeatable manner, which would significantly enhance their professional abilities. This immediate goal is supplemented by medium and long-term objectives, such as the ‘re-training’ of former graduates and the continuous education of current healthcare professionals. The establishment of the Lab aims to create a training ecosystem for past, current, and future healthcare professionals, with academic references and lifelong learning opportunities. Another goal is to transform our School into a certification examination center, providing certification opportunities for interested individuals. The collaboration with the Latsis Foundation has already had an impact on the local healthcare community: current students, graduates, and active healthcare workers have familiarised themselves with the space and equipment, are receiving training, and acquiring new skills. Additionally, a collaboration protocol has been implemented with the Nafplion Nursing Unit, whose nurses have already participated in two training cycles.”

Filippos Delis

Director, School of Higher Vocational Education of Argos