Health Career Planning

Desirable Traits for Health Careers

  • A strong desire to help others.
  • A genuine concern for the welfare of patients and clients.
  • The patience and emotional maturity to deal with people of diverse backgrounds in stressful situations.

Health Careers: Direct Contact

  • Careers involving direct contact with clients or patients include:
    • Nursing
    • Medicine
    • Dentistry
    • Dietetics
    • Social work
    • Physical therapy
    • Recreation therapy
    • Occupational therapy

Health Careers: Limited Direct Contact

  • Careers with limited direct contact still play a significant role in patient well-being.
  • Examples:
    • Medical Laboratory Professionals (scientists and technicians)
    • Health information technicians

Three Categories of Health Care

  • The Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies health care into three broad categories:
    • Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations
    • Healthcare Support Occupations
    • Community and Social Service Occupations

Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations

  • Involve diagnosing or treating practitioners who provide direct clinical care.
    • Examples: physicians, registered nurses, dentists, dental hygienists, audiologists, speech-language pathologists, dietitians, chiropractors, physical therapists, and occupational therapists.
  • Health technologists and technicians support the work of practitioners.
    • Examples: medical laboratory scientists and technicians, diagnostic-related technologists and technicians, medical records specialists, licensed practical and vocational nurses, and dietetic or pharmacy technicians.
  • Educational requirements:
    • Practitioners: Graduate degree and licensure.
    • Scientists: Bachelor's and graduate degrees.
    • Technicians: Associate's degree.

Healthcare Support Occupations

  • Represent the largest number of healthcare workers.
    • Examples: home health and personal care aides, nursing assistants, medical assistants, dental assistants, massage therapists, phlebotomists, and occupational and physical therapy assistants and aides.
  • Typically work under the supervision of clinical practitioners such as physicians, registered nurses, physical therapists, or dentists.
  • Lower educational requirements that vary from on-the-job training or post-secondary certification to an associate’s degree.

Community and Social Service Occupations

  • Professionals who often work in healthcare settings.
    • Examples: social workers, substance abuse/behavioral disorders/mental health counselors, and health educators.
  • Work in hospitals and clinics; health educators are also employed in public health settings.
  • Bachelor’s degree required for entry-level practice.
  • Social service support personnel:
    • Examples: community health workers and social service assistants.
  • Typically required to have a high school diploma and receive on-the-job training

Diversity of Healthcare Workers

  • Sex, race, and ethnic diversity of healthcare workers does not match the diversity of the population.
  • Workers in the United States are almost equally distributed between male and female; three-quarters of healthcare workers are women.

Exceptions in Gender Distribution

  • Five professions in which the majority are males:
    • Dentists, chiropractors, physicians, optometrists, and emergency medical technicians and paramedics
  • Four of the five male-dominated professions are in the Diagnosing or Treating Practitioners category.
  • The exception is emergency medical technicians and paramedics, which is in the Health Technologists and Technicians category.
  • Occupations with the lowest representation of men are dental hygienists and speech-language pathologists.

Distribution of Healthcare Workers (Race and Ethnicity)

  • Racial and ethnic distribution in the United States:
    • 58% White, 12% Black, 19% Hispanic, 6% Asian, and 5% Other
  • Distribution in the healthcare workforce:
    • 64% White, 12% Black, 16% Hispanic, and 5% Asian, and 6% Other
  • Minority groups are under-represented in the Diagnosing or Treating Practitioners category except for Asians, who are dentists, pharmacists, physicians, and optometrists, and Blacks, who are dietitians and respiratory therapists.

Benefits of a Diverse Workforce

  • Benefits of a diverse workforce in health care include improvement in communication between the patient and clinician and greater access to health care for minority (non-White) patients.

Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)

  • Responsible for monitoring the diversity of the healthcare workforce
  • Provides financial support for students in the health professions through grants, loan repayment programs, and scholarships
  • Some scholarships are designated for disadvantaged students, especially low-income minority students.

Projected Demand for Healthcare Personnel

  • Health care provided 18 million jobs for wage and salary workers in 2018.
  • Projected to generate 2.4 million new jobs between 2019 and 2029
  • Demand for healthcare personnel is expected to increase by 15% between 2019 and 2029 compared to 4% increase for all occupations.

Reasons for Projected Growth

  • Longer life expectancy and aging of the “baby boomers” means demand for healthcare workers will continue.
  • Healthcare practitioners are needed to manage chronic diseases, and home health and personal care aides are needed to provide personal care assistance as seniors age.

Growth in Healthcare Employment

  • According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, eight of the twenty fastest-growing occupations are health care related.
  • Projections for growth are from 25% to 52% between 2019 to 2029 for the eight health-related professions shown on the next slide.

Projected Growth (Categories)

  • Growth is anticipated in all three categories of healthcare occupations.
  • Community and Social Service category
    • Substance abuse/behavioral disorders/mental health counselors
  • Healthcare Practitioners and Technical category
    • Physician assistants, speech-language pathologists, registered nurses, and nurse practitioners
  • Healthcare Support category
    • Home health and personal care aides, and physical and occupational therapy assistants
  • There is also high demand for nursing instructors and other health specialty teachers.

The Five Major Industries That Employ Health Workers

*   Hospitals
*   Offices of health practitioners
*   Nursing and residential facilities
*   Home health services
*   Outpatient, laboratory, and other ambulatory services

Additional Work Settings

  • Orthotists and prosthetists
  • Blood banks [medical laboratory professionals]
  • Dental laboratories
  • Family planning services
  • Health education and promotion departments in large corporations
  • Public health departments [many types of degrees]
  • Poison control centers
  • Community mental health centers
  • Migrant health programs
  • Community health centers
  • Voluntary health agencies
  • Several branches of the federal government
    • OSHA, USDA, FDA
    • U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Veterans Administration

Employment Opportunities

  • Rural and inner-city communities
  • Maldistribution of health personnel
  • Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA)
  • HRSA of U.S. DHHS funds scholarships and low-interest loans to educationally and economically disadvantaged students with financial need
  • Loan repayment options in exchange for serving three years in an HPSA
    * State Loan Repayment Program
    * National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Loan Repayment Program (LRP)
    * Student to Service Loan Repayment Program

Career Exploration: The Process

  • Visit several departments within the facilities.
  • Set up an interview with a health worker in a discipline of interest.
  • Visit laboratories.
  • Ask about the philosophy of each facility you visit.
  • Before you go exploring, do your homework:
    • View video clips of health professionals.
    • Visit the websites of professional organizations.
    • Be prepared to ask pertinent questions that will help you make decisions.

Licensure

  • Before you can work in many health professions, a state license is legally required.
  • Qualifications for licensure vary. In general, a student must graduate from a school whose program is approved by the state licensing agency and then prove that he or she is qualified to give health services by passing a licensing examination.
  • Licensure is the state’s way of protecting the public from unqualified health practitioners.

Certification

  • Voluntary or mandatory for individual health professionals
  • Ensures the employer and the public that a health professional meets an established level of competence in their field
  • Granted by national professional organizations and recognized in all states
  • Even when not required, certification is a strong asset for employment.

Registration

  • Technically, professional registration means listing of certified health professionals on an official roster kept by a state agency or health professional organization.
  • Some health professional organizations use the term registration interchangeably with certification.

Health Careers: Something for Everyone

  • The health field, perhaps more than any other career area, offers wide-ranging opportunities to match almost any interest.
  • A health career does not automatically mean a hospital job or care of the sick.
  • Science and mathematics are required for some healthcare jobs, but many others do not emphasize these subjects.
  • Some health occupations take many years of preparation; others require two or fewer years of preparation to practice.
  • The cost of training must be balanced against what one can earn.
  • Don’t sell yourself short—If you fear that training may be too hard for you, think twice.