A Career in Allied Health

Maybe you've always pictured yourself in the exciting, dynamic field of healthcare - working side-by-side with other medical professionals, making a real difference in the lives you touch.

If you like helping people and making a difference, you should explore any number of allied health care fields to find the one that is right for you. Physicians and nurses are only two of the hundreds of different health care professions available. Allied health professionals make up the majority of the health care workforce. There are numerous opportunities to explore.

Allied health providers are experts in a multitude of therapeutic, diagnostic, and preventative health measures. From radiation therapists who work closely with patients and cancer specialists to occupational therapists who work in public school settings with children with disabilities, there are many fascinating and exciting opportunities in allied health.

Consider the comments of the director of the Massachusetts Women-Infant-&-Children's (WIC) Learning Center. The Center focuses on training state and local WIC staff at all job levels about the policies and procedures of administering WIC services. The director, who I interviewed recently, is a nutritionist. She is also a manager, and does a good deal of teaching herself. She loves her job because it allows her to combine her interests---nutrition and teaching, while serving a clientele she is passionate about empowering. She says, "I have an obligation to do the best possible job for those who need my help, and when you know that you are doing your best at your job, you get the feeling that it doesn't get any better than that." The director is proud of what WIC offers, and although nutrition education is the major part of it, she explained that people should know it offers so much more, such as screening for immunizations and lead, as well as referrals to other services.

Also consider the words of another satisfied allied health professional "Being a registered electroneurodiagnostic technologist has taken me places and taught me things most people never get to see or do. Electroneurodiagnostics (END) is a field that so many people just don't know about. It is a career where opportunities abound. The job satisfaction and starting salaries are tremendous."

"Currently, I am chief of neurointraoperative monitoring at a world-class hospital in Boston. It is also where my career in electroneurodiagnostics began. Upon graduation I passed my credentialing exam and found employment immediately. After five years in the field, my typical day is now spent in the operating room with neurosurgeons, anesthesiologists and other medical professionals. Many are world-renowned and I am a part of their team. Intraoperative monitoring is just one of the specialties an END technologist can aspire to."

Other rewarding opportunities in different allied health fields: An imaging technologist or radiographer takes an ultrasound and shows a mother and father the first images of their unborn child; an emergency medical technician is first on the scene in an accident; a friend or family member is diagnosed with cancer and receives radiation treatments by a radiation therapist, a patient newly diagnosed with diabetes reviews proper nutrition selections with a nutritionist or dietetic technician, a health information specialist analyzes data in a research study helping to determine issues that affect entire populations.

Allied health professionals provide the needed expertise to help patients understand advanced technology. Skills of allied health providers are often very specific and highly technical, leading to over two hundred unique allied health professions. These professionals work to deliver high-quality patient care services for the identification, prevention and treatment of diseases, disabilities and disorders. Allied health providers work to make sick or injured people healthy and keep them healthy.

Education levels vary among the allied health professions for instance, pharmacy and physical therapy have six-year professional doctoral programs before beginning practice. Students enter the professional doctoral program directly from high school. Students preparing for other health careers can enter programs leading to a certificate as in phlebotomy or medical assisting or a degree at the associate, bachelor, or graduate level. Many allied health professionals are educated in two-year and four-year colleges with clinical education concurrent with traditional classroom experiences. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the top 30 occupations from all industries nationwide projected to grow the fastest in the next ten years, half are allied health professions.

Editorial provided by Joseph W. McNabb, PhD, president of Caritas Labouré College in Boston, MA.