Roles in the health care industry can vary from administrative staff to surgeons.
It's no wonder that plenty of people have aspirations of entering the health care industry; according to the Sol Power Jobs website, quoting the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the 20 occupations with the highest growth rate as of 2010, nine of these are in the health care sector. With an aging population and the emergence of new technologies driving more health care jobs to be created each year, health care is an increasingly larger and more diverse sector.
Nursing
Nurses monitor and support patients in their care. A hospital nurse, for example, will be responsible for a number of patients on a ward at any time, and will keep notes on each patient's condition, administering treatments when necessary and advising other medical staff on any changes.
Nurses also work outside hospitals. For example, a nurse might support a primary care practitioner working at a medical practise, while other nurses might specialize in areas such as sexual health or health education, and be employed in sexual health clinics or at schools. According to the PayScale website, a nurse typically earns between $46,000 and $66,000 per year.
Doctors
Doctors provide medical care for patients both in their local community and those who are referred to their place of work from elsewhere. Two of the most common roles of this type are general practitioners and hospital doctors. General practitioners typically work in a medical practice and are the first port-of-call for many people; as such, they spend much of their time treating patients for common ailments or referring them to specialists or hospitals. The general practitioner might also help to run the medical center she works in, as noted by the Prospects website.
Meanwhile, a hospital doctor works in a ward and tends to specialize in certain types of medicine; for example, she might work in paediatrics, gynecology or in the hospital's accident and emergency department. Hospitals also employ surgeons, who will carry out operations as required.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2008 primary care practitioners earned on average about $186,000 a year, while specialized physicians earned about $340,000 per year.
Medical Manager
Hospitals and medical practises must be run efficiently, and medical managers are the people who ensure that on a day-to-day basis, a medical center is well-organized and can provide the best service possible. This type of job includes health service managers and administrators, as well as nursing home administrators and clinical managers. While the exact nature of each job will vary, all medical managers are expected to attend meetings to discuss a center's operation, to plan or evaluate budgets, and to review medical facilities on a regular basis.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, medical managers typically somewhere in the region of $71,000 to $87,000, with earnings varying depending on the size of the center managed and the level of responsibility the manager possesses.
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