William Floyd High School Career and Technical Education (CTE) Medical Assisting seniors Daisy Arias Alajon and Ciara Chicaiza won gold medals at the 60^th Annual SkillsUSA New York State Leadership Conference and Skills Competition recently held in Syracuse, New York! Daisy placed first in the Medical Terminology competition and Ciara won the Medical Assisting competition. Both seniors will now have the opportunity to compete and represent William Floyd and all of New York State in the SkillsUSA National Leadership & Skills Conference in Atlanta, GA, from June 1-6.

The Medical Assisting competition is a multi-faceted evaluation in which competitors must complete a written knowledge test and a demonstration of skills featuring topics from Health Occupations: Core Knowledge and Skills and the American Medical Association (AMA) accreditation and certification standards. Ciara won first place after showing her ability to perform general office and accounting procedures, complete government and third-party insurance forms and other financial reports, perform general laboratory, hematology and electrocardiogram (EKG) procedures, demonstrate knowledge of pharmaceutical principles, provide medication administration and perform clinical office procedures all to the certification standards recognized by the AMA. Ciara also placed first in this competition at Regionals, showcasing a high level of knowledge in her field and preparedness for future employment.

William Floyd students had three total top-two finishers at SkillsUSA Regionals.

The Medical Terminology competition uses core standards from the medical terminology portion of the National Consortium for Health to test competitors’ knowledge of proper medical terminology and abbreviations. Daisy won the competition after exhibiting a strong knowledge of accepted medical word roots, prefixes, suffixes and abbreviations used within the healthcare industry, while also demonstrating excellence and professionalism in the process. Adding to this already impressive feat is the fact that this was Daisy’s first time ever competing with SkillsUSA.

Additionally, the following students also attended the conference and put forth great efforts in their competitions: Valentino Abate, Elif Akgun, Payton Bianco, Jayda Bolivar, Jayden Bosman, Jerry Cabrera, Christopher Chimbo, Annalyse Cruz, Ya’Nya Cummings, Jennehl Curry, Skarleth Garcia, Ja’Zelle Hobbs, Jonessa Jones, Dominick Lauro, Julianna Melendez, Brian Morales, Allana Morgan, Cyniah Perez-Trent, Noah Peiffer, Randy Salamanca, Naydelin Sanchez Hernandez and Tayra Zavala.

Congratulations to all of the competing students and advisors Cara Cliffe and Charlize Gonzalez for their excellent work in representing the William Floyd School District!  

Best of luck to Daisy and Ciara at nationals!