For decades healthcare workers have counted themselves among the most highly-prized and well-compensated employees in the country. And now, thanks to special hospital initiatives called "career-ladder programs", healthcare workers have unprecedented access to the education and training needed to advance in their fields.
Working together with public agencies, private patrons, and consultants, many hospitals are creating programs to help their workers ascend the career ladder. These programs provide educational opportunities for aspiring nurses, pharmacist technicians, physical therapists, and other medical workers. By supplying financial support and resources for the pursuit of healthcare degrees, hospitals hope to identify reliable frontline workers and move them into advanced positions.
From a Job to a Career
One organization, Jobs to Careers, was recently awarded $15.8 million by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to provide grants to healthcare employers dedicated to the career advancement of their workers. If you are an entry-level healthcare worker, you can prepare for a better-paying position by taking advantage of career ladder programs like this one. Consider these four examples of how education can transform an ordinary job into a lucrative, exciting career.
1. Career Care: Become a Registered Nurse
Demographic changes and increased demand for healthcare have created a nursing shortage in our country. Many hospitals address this by providing incentives to prospective nurses, including educational training and enhanced benefits. If you are a nursing assistant or are contemplating pursuing a nursing degree, consider taking advantage of career ladder programs that help workers obtain nursing certification.
Nursing assistants work in hospitals, retirement homes, and doctors' offices, where they perform hands-on care such as monitoring patients' vital signs and meeting their basic needs. Nursing assistants are required to have some medical training which is offered by vocational and technical schools. While working as a nursing assistant, you can earn an advanced degree and nursing certification such as the RN (Registered Nurse) in 2 to 3 years. Registered nurses can also choose to extend their training by earning a Bachelor's of Science in Nursing, or BSN.
2. Making it Work: From Medical Assistant to Healthcare Administrator
Medical assistants perform a variety of administrative and clerical tasks, from keeping track of patient records to handling hospital admissions and insurance forms. More than half of medical assistants work in physicians' offices and most of them are in charge of administrative duties. Medical associates degrees are offered by vocational and community colleges and require 1-2 years of study.
Through online degree programs available to working healthcare professionals, medical assistants can pursue medical administration degrees, such as the master's in health services management. While medical assistants working in hospitals earned a median salary of $27,340 in 2006, health services managers working in hospitals earned over $78,000.
3. Getting Physical: Assist Your Way to a Degree in PT
If you choose to start out as a physical therapist assistant, your direct, hands-on involvement in physical therapy procedures will serve as an excellent introduction to PT practice. Many physical assistants, equipped with associate's degrees, choose to earn their master's degrees and become licensed physical therapists.
The median annual salary of a licensed physical therapist was over $66,000, compared to the approximately $41,000 earned by physical therapist assistants. As a physical therapist assistant working in a hospital or private practice, career ladder programs and nontraditional degree programs can help you become a licensed physical therapist.
4. Pharmacy Career: Take Education As Needed
Hospitals and private businesses hire pharmacist technicians to dispense medications and answer patient questions under the direction of a licensed pharmacist. Pharmacist technicians usually have at least an associate's degree or a diploma from a pharmacy training program. Because the work of a pharmacist technician involves constant first-hand interaction with medications, these workers are well suited to advancement in the field.
Some employers, particularly hospitals, are offering technicians the opportunity to pursue advanced degrees. As a pharmacist technician, you can train to become a chemotherapy technician, a nuclear pharmacy technician, or a licensed pharmacist. Training to become a licensed pharmacist requires at least 4 years of additional study in addition to the associate's degree and can be completed through nontraditional degree programs.
Ascending the Career Ladder: Let Education Be Your Guide
Recent developments in the field have made the upper tier of healthcare jobs more accessible than ever. Through career ladder programs and online degree programs, healthcare professionals are no longer forced to remain in their current positions and longer than the want to.
If you have a job in healthcare, or are thinking about getting one, get familiar with the fantastic career opportunities opening up to enterprising workers. In today's burgeoning medical field there is no such thing as a dead-end job.
