Allied Health...Did you know that OCC offered medical and dental transfer majors in our first college catalog? You may not know that our first certificate/degree was in Nursing, which started in 1951. Nursing was a very active program at OCC until it transferred to Golden West College in 1966. OCC's oldest continually operating Allied Health Program started in 1955 as “X-Ray” Technology (changed to Radiologic Technology in 1970).
All Allied Health programs, including Nursing, were initially housed under the Fine and Applied Arts Division, except for Medical Assisting, which originated in the Health, Physical and Business Education Division. OCC’s Nursing became so large that it split into its own division in 1961. After GWC opened and Nursing (along with Auto and Police Science) moved from OCC, a restructuring of divisions at OCC occurred. In 1968, all Allied Health programs and the former home economics programs moved to a new division called Consumer and Health Sciences.
OCC also offered health occupation programs that moved to four-year schools due to licensing requirements, such as Medical Lab or Clinical Lab Technology (1957-1963) and Radiation Therapy (1979-1989).
The current allied health programs and their origin dates are:
- X-Ray (Radiologic Technology) – 1955
- Dental Assisting – 1961
- Medical Assisting – 1965
- Hospital Food Service – 1967
- Medical Transcription (now part of Medical Assisting) 1969
- Respiratory Care & Dietetic Technology – 1970
- Electrocardiography (now Cardiovascular Technology) – 1971
- Electroencephalography (now Neurodiagnostic Technology) – 1971
- Emergency Medical Technology – 1974
- Diagnostic Medical Sonography (Ultrasound) – 1978
- Polysomnograpy – 1991
- Speech Language Pathology Assistant – 1998
Upon graduation from these programs, the College has a Pinning Ceremony for graduates. The earliest evidence of a pinning ceremony was in 1953 for Nursing and in 1963 for Dental Assisting.
First class of nurses, 1952:
2023 Allied Health graduates:
