Historical Development of the Paramedic Education Program

In the mid-1990's, Dr. August Leinhart, Chief of Trauma and Emergency Services at Bassett Healthcare, identified a need for paramedics in the rural communities served by Bassett Healthcare's network of clinics and affiliated hospitals and he set in motion a paramedic education program initiative. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Matthew Clark was hired as the first paramedic program coordinator and the first paramedic class was started in Cooperstown.

At the same time, New York State's Department of Health was becoming increasingly more aware of a national trend towards moving paramedic education out of poorly prepared regional training centers to more traditional centers of learning such as universities and colleges. With this trend in mind, and in an effort to improve paramedic education statewide, the Health Department mandated that all paramedic programs become affiliated a secondary schools or community college.

Under mandate and with the good of the region's patient's in mind, Mr. Beebe, the second paramedic program coordinator, approached Cobleskill College with a proposal to form a collaborative arrangement. Dr. Michael Murphy, Mr. Richard Beebe, and Mr. Scott Bonderoff met and discussed the possibility of a strategic alliance and agreed it could be in the best interests of all parties that an alliance be formed. From that meeting it was hoped that an affiliation agreement between Cobleskill College and Bassett Healthcare would be forthcoming and the start of a paramedic education program at Cobleskill College.