A-B Tech presents An Exploration of Pandemics
A-B Tech is responding to the COVID-19 crisis by offering a class taught by our own local experts about pandemics and their causes. “Pandemics: Issues and Answers” will address multiple perspectives surrounding COVID-19 and its impacts.
The six-week class will be held on Tuesdays, starting September 1, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Ferguson Allied Health and Workforce Development Building on the Asheville campus.
Offered by A-B Tech’s Workforce Continuing Education department, the pandemic course may benefit organizations, institutions or individuals. Highlights include:
- Find out how governments, public health officials and emergency service personnel combat pandemics and mobilize to protect the public.
- Gain a better understanding of viruses, how they are transmitted, why they are different from other illnesses, and how they affect the human body.
- Get answers to your questions about how we can best protect ourselves in daily life.
The course is $75 and is open to the public, with no special background or knowledge required. Register online at abtech.edu/coned-registration. For more information, contact Teresa Robinson at teresamrobinson@abtech.edu
Instructor panel consists of Jon R. Wiener, Ph. D., Dean of Allied Health/virology expert; Clint Gorman, M.B.A., Dean of Emergency Services/Paramedic; and Danielle Wiener, Master of Public Health (2021)/infection control specialist.
Jon Wiener holds a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Virginia and did a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University in specialty structure and pathogenicity of animal and human viruses. He trained under two of the most famous virologists of the 20th century. He was an Assistant Professor at Duke University and Assistant/Associate Professor at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Wiener spent most of his time in Cancer Research, some of which concerned viral oncogenes, and his work resulted in a drug being added to chemotherapeutic cocktails for late stage ovarian cancer. His dissertation concerned the structure of the envelope of enveloped animal/human viruses, which includes coronaviruses. He is the author of 36 peer-reviewed papers and six book chapters.
Clint Gorman who is A-B Tech’s representative to the Buncombe County Emergency Management team for COVID-10, has 40-years of experience in emergency services and was a member of A-B Tech’s first paramedic class. He worked for more than 30 years at Buncombe County Emergency Services in EMS and Disaster Management: local and state natural, manmade, technological disasters. Gorman and his staff also assisted the county with training for its COVID-19 response.
Gorman was a member of the initial Buncombe County Health Department “Epi Team” (Epidemic Response Team). In his career at the county , he dealt with HIV/AIDS, SARS, H1N1. In the early days of HIV/AIDS, he co-authored and taught the infection control plan used by emergency response agencies in the county. The foundations of that plan are still in use today.
Danielle Wiener has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology/Neuroscience from UNCA Asheville and is a current Master of Public Health Student in Infection Control/Epidemiology at the University of South Florida. An A-B Tech graduate, she plans to become an emergency medicine physician and public health and infectious disease epidemiology expert.