Fun Facts

The occupational therapist career is one that is growing and will show increasing demand in coming years. Occupational therapists work with mentally and physically disabled patients, assisting them in coping with the tasks of daily life at their workplace or at home. Let’s take a close look at what this career path entails.

Work

The work of an occupational therapist is to bring people who are experiencing various disabilities back into norms or work and general living. These people may have physical or mental problems that make getting daily tasks taken care of difficult. They may have mobility problems, for instance, due to an injury, making basic tasks like going shopping or moving around the house difficult. Or they may have psychological problems or developmental difficulties that affect their ability to work and handle their daily responsibilities.

This is where occupational therapists come in. They assist these individuals in getting to better activity flows. They do this in a number of different ways:

Physical Exercises

The occupational therapist may use physical exercises to help rehabilitate somebody with a physical disability. They may massage an individual, have them lift weights to increase strength, have them do specific stretches designed to help bring muscles back to better states and so on. This is the same sort of therapy that one may find in physical therapy. But it has the added focus of being geared toward getting individuals to a level where they can work and handle daily tasks effectively. Many occupational therapist jobs deal extensively with the physical level.

Mental/Perceptual Therapy

An occupational therapist will also work on the mental level with patients. If, for instance, someone is having trouble with memory, the occupational therapist may employ memory exercises designed by psychologists in order to rehabilitate that type of mental function. They may also assist individual with their reasoning and problem solving ability by given them various tests or exercises. Along these general lines are perceptual exercises that assist patients in perceptual acuity (i.e. eyesight and so on) motor control and coordination, and so forth.

Technology

Sometimes occupational therapists use various technologies to assist patients. They may use specific machines or for physical exercises, show patients how to use assistive technologies if they need to access them, or use computer programs to administer various psychological tests. Sometimes the even design or build various devices that are specially designed for a particular patient.

Work Environment

Due to the combined mental and physical nature of this work, the job environments in which a physical therapist may find him or herself are quite variable. Occupational therapists jobs may involve working for hospitals, doctors’ offices, schools, long term care facilities, various rehabilitation programs, home care organizations, and so on. Some are self employed, working on a contract basis for a number of different facilities or for individuals on the recommendation of a physician.

Training/Education

Occupational therapist training moves to advanced levels before an individual begins to work in the industry. The majority of occupational therapists have at least a Master’s degree and may even have more advanced degrees. This is to be expected since there are many different types of skill sets that are used in the field. As noted, both psychological and physical therapy modalities are part of this type of work, and both field are accessed at fairly high levels of expertise. Master’s degree programs are offered at 4 year colleges and medical schools around the country.

Having an advanced, post Baccalaureate degree is usually legally required. Furthermore, the educational programs that a physical therapist attends must be accredited by an organization called the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE).

Licensing and Certification

Licensing is mandatory for occupational therapists. The license is granted to people who complete ACOTE accredited educational programs in occupational therapy. Licensing is often associated with passing a national certification exam given by the National Board for Certifying Occupational Therapy (NBCOT). After successfully completing this exam, a student is given the title of Occupational Therapist Registered (OTR). The license and certification are important parts of an occupational therapist’s credentials.

Occupational Therapist Salary

Occupational therapists are paid quite well. The site Salary.com, which has reasonably accurate and up to date figures, gives the median salary for occupational therapists as $73,359. The median 50% range the site gives is between $67,593 and $79,800. This is a skilled trade for which significant educational is necessary, so its practitioners are paid accordingly. It appears that the best paid positions overall are with home care companies. About mid range are health practitioners’ offices and toward the bottom of the list are hospitals and schools. But these latter still pay quite well and offer a comfortable living standard.

Job Growth

The occupational therapy career is expected to grow very fast. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts an increase of 26% percent over 2008 demand levels. There is largely due to an increasing elderly population as well as advancement in technologies related to physical therapy. There should be plenty of jobs available in coming years, making this a good field to get into.

A career as an occupational therapist may have a lot to offer you. You can learn a valuable health profession, make a good income, and have the satisfaction of helping people. You will be working with people in a healing way and getting them back toward having more trouble free and active lives. It does require quite a bit of training to go into this field, but you will find that it is probably worth it considering the good you are able to do.

Career

Most people, when they hear that I am an ultrasound technician, think about babies and pregnant women right away. And it’s true that many ultrasound technicians spend most of their careers working with women who are pregnant or are trying to become pregnant. However, we have an important role in many other parts of medicine as well, and it is not unusual to see an Ultrasound Technician who has never worked around pregnant women since they were still in school.

1) An Ultrasound Technician can make a pretty decent salary. We help a lot of people, and our paychecks usually reflect that. Depending on many different factors, someone working full-time in this field, with the appropriate education and licensing could expect to make 45,000-75,000 dollars a year.

2) You would be hard-put to walk through a hospital and not be on a floor or in a department that we aren’t in. There is usually at least one of us in the Emergency Room, OB/GYN, Neurology, Ophthalmology, and Vascular Medicine. Some hospitals have an Ultrasound Technician on call, so he or she might be rotated to different departments on every shift they work. We’re even found in some dentist’s offices!

3) In many states, you can choose to pend as little as one year in school to start your career. You can also spend two years in school to earn an Associate’s degree or four years to earn a Bachelor’s degree. In general, the more longer you spend in college, the better your job opportunities and the higher your salary will be.

4) The Bureau of Vital Statistics has published information stating that there were more than 51,000 of us in this profession in 2009.

5) By the year 2018, they also estimate that there could be as many as 18% more of us in this field than there were in 2009. That’s a pretty good chance for job stability!

6) The advances that have occurred in medical care over the past several decades have allowed people to live longer, and for many illnesses to be diagnosed before they become deadly. That means that, as most people in the medical field do, we are often responsible for helping save lives through early detection. THAT’S why it’s so important that every Ultrasound Technician be adequately trained.

7) Although a few people have expressed some concern regarding the safety of ultrasounds, it has been proven repeatedly that they are very safe. As a result of that, and because an ultrasound technician should not expect to come into regular contact with body fluids, a practicing Ultrasound Technician may have one of the safest jobs in the medical field.

8) Depending on where you work, state laws that apply in your area, and your employer’s preferences, you may be required by at least one certification board. Having dual certifications, if allowed in your state, could make you particularly attractive to future employers. The American Registry for Diagnostic Medical Sonography (ARDMS) and the Association of Registered Diagnostic Medical Sonographers (RDMS) are the two groups that make sure people who go into this field know what they are doing. A certification from either or both of these have the potential to help you make or break your career.

9)We should be good in math and science. Why we need to be good in science is probably somewhat self-explanatory, since it’s in the medical field. We need to be good in math because we may be responsible for doing some of the computations that result in diagnoses.

10)Although schools can always decide to change, remove, or add on programs, in 2006 there were a grand total of 147 schools that offered a program for being an Ultrasound Technician in the United States. That means that there could be a waiting list for the program at the school nearest you, so if you want to sign up, do so as early as possible. We’ve probably all heard the joke about the first person on the waiting list on the fourth day of school…he’s the first person in the class for the next semester.

This is a solid career that allows us to have the ability to interact with patients on a regular basis and allows us to earn a good living at the same time. Most people in this field have reported a lot of job satisfaction.

Career

A lot of people don’t seem to know that being a Radiology Technician can actually be a fun job. Obviously, it’s a very important job, with a heavy emphasis on patient contact.

1) Even though it is our job to administer certain tests, like MRI’s, x-rays, and mammograms, we  will very rarely ( if ever) be the one to make the formal diagnosis about the results of that decision. That should be a judgment call that is made by a physician, no matter how much the patients might ask.

2) Although we can’t make the formal diagnosis, after a while, you’re likely to eventually have a good idea of what is wrong with a  patient when you see the test results. Because of this, you will also have an enormous amount of confidential information about patients, and you can never disclose any of that information, or your opinion about anything to do with the patient.

3) We need to be able to interpret the results of the tests, and then to give them to the doctor. Therefore, it is really important that we are able to work well with others, even under severe time restrictions.

4) The proper positioning of the patient at all times during each scan or procedure could be the difference between an accurate result and a misleading result. That means that we need to be effective communicators, particularly since some of the patients that we are helping are sick, hurt or scared.

5) We can never, ever perform a test that has not been ordered by a physician. In some hospitals or clinics, you can do so on a verbal order, but 99% of the time, that order should be in writing. This will not only prevent miscommunications, but helps to ensure prompt insurance payments.

6) If you end up working in a doctor’s office or medical clinic, you might be expected to split your time between your duties as a Radiology Technician and running the front office. That’s something important to bring up if you’re interviewing for that type of position.

7) You could, once you’ve got some experience under your belt, teach the subject. More than one Radiology Technician has gone on to educate groups of hopeful students, and the health field is unusual in that you often do not need teaching experience to share your knowledge.

8) Being able to do our job well, even under immense stress, could mean the difference between a patient’s life and death, or them being able to receive an appropriate diagnosis.

9) We should be able to show compassion to the patients we are seeing. Medical personnel might be the only people that know of the health crisis he or she is experiencing, so we need to be sensitive to each person’s individual situation.

10) Approximately half of the time that you spend learning will be spent performing the skills that you learn. The other half is in an actual classroom setting, as with any college class.

Career