AllHealthcare

When providing bedside care loses its luster, working in a nonclinical specialty can renew your love for nursing and draw on your clinical experience. The following positions exist at most healthcare institutions and are well-suited to experienced nurses. However, only a few such jobs may be available at a given facility. h4. Case Managers Case managers choreograph all aspects of patient ...

Whether you're a social worker, therapist, visiting nurse or another type of home healthcare practitioner, you will undoubtedly face an ethical dilemma at some point in your career. These quandaries can relate to a patient's safety, competency or confidentiality, reimbursement or a host of other issues that force home healthcare workers to act. Three home healthcare professionals shed light on issues ...

Whether performing diagnostic imaging exams or administering radiation therapy treatments, radiologic technologists (RTs) spend many of their working hours reaching, lifting, pushing, pulling, twisting, scanning or just plain hustling to keep up with their increasingly demanding workloads. These rigorous physical demands can lead to injuries of the back, neck, shoulders, wrists and other body parts. But there are ways RTs can ...

With newfangled technology replacing many manual tasks in the lab, medical technologists need to develop skills that will make them indispensable in the computer age. Such skills must go well beyond education and training to distinguish the leaders from the followers and ultimately make labs more efficient, more effective and more accurate. What are these coveted skills? Julie Rufus, manager of ...

Pharmacists tend to believe that they provide dispassionate service and care for their customers who are, after all, patients. But in the 2000s, a passion-filled controversy is dividing pharmacists, engendering activity in Congress and dozens of state legislatures and creating questions about future practices in this field. The crux of the matter: Should pharmacists have the right to refuse to dispense ...

Clinical social worker Jim Hardeman almost landed in jail once for refusing to turn over confidential client records. Hardeman, who was managing a corporation's employee assistance program at the time, had counseled both parents involved in a heated custody battle. Because of his work with the pair, the court ordered Hardeman to turn over his therapeutic records regarding the couple. "I ...

If you've ever had a computed tomography (CT) scan at the clinic or an X-ray at your dentist's office, you already understand a little about radiography and how it can be used for diagnostic and treatment purposes in healthcare. But did you know the applications of radiography, defined as the use of electromagnetic radiation to examine objects without damaging or destroying ...

Nurses with an appetite for both emergency-room trauma and courtroom drama may have a future in legal nurse consulting. Legal nurse consultants work at the intersection of medicine and law, consulting with attorneys and others in the legal arena on medical malpractice, personal injury, workers' compensation and other healthcare-related cases. Thousands of nurses have already carved out a professional niche in ...

Once limited to bulky equipment and rays of energy, radiology has expanded in the digital age -- and so have its specialties. From positions as cardiovascular interventional technologists to sonographers and mammographers, opportunities in radiologic technology are growing. Indeed, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts faster-than-average job growth for radiology professionals through 2012, according to a 2004 report. Radiologic technologists ...

From working with ballet dancers to collaborating with veterinarians, many physical therapists (PTs) are carving out a variety of useful yet nontraditional practice niches in response to changing societal needs and demands. Pamela Duffy, PT, MEd, OCS, who has held several leadership positions in the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), offers insights into six emerging practice areas identified by the APTA. ...

If you watch TV shows like "ER" or have friends who are training to become nurses, doctors or other clinical professionals, you might think the only healthcare careers available are those focused on meeting individual patient needs. They're the jobs that tend to get the most airplay, literally and figuratively. But behind the scenes are healthcare professionals who make their own ...

Looking for a career as a therapy or rehab professional in a top-notch setting? How about a healthcare system where the medical practice, equipment and record-keeping are state-of-the-art, the patients are considered heroes and the employee benefits surpass those most private employers offer? Then consider a career with the Veterans Health Administration, the US Department of Veterans Affairs' health service. "We ...

When you watch popular hospital TV shows like "Grey's Anatomy" or "House," all you ever see are the people in clinical jobs - doctors, nurses and the like. It's as though the complex healthcare organizations these people work for run themselves. Not true, of course. Behind the scenes, and in a variety of settings, not just hospitals, you'll find dedicated people ...

Now that all freshly minted pharmacy grads have PharmDs, the degree is no longer the distinction it once was. So ambitious pharmacists are looking for new ways to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. For a small but growing number of them, specialty certification offers one way to demonstrate a high level of clinical knowledge. But which certification is right for you, ...

The idea that music embodies healing powers goes back at least to the days of ancient Greece, but only recently has music therapy gained recognition as an effective way to treat the ill, the elderly and the physically and emotionally disabled. "A lot of healthcare facilities that wouldn't have considered hiring a music therapist 10 years ago would consider doing so ...

Through online pharmacies, consumers can order and receive drugs and refills their physicians have prescribed without waiting in line or even leaving home. This level of convenience, as well as the privacy afforded through online transactions, makes Internet pharmacies appealing to customers, says Steve Hall, RPh, manager of clinical pharmacy operations for drugstore.com. "Customers provide us with health information and ask ...

With more pharmacists growing weary of day-in and day-out pill-dispensing duties, clinical pharmacy is attracting druggists who want to play a vital role on the healthcare team. Unlike many other pharmacists, clinical pharmacists are directly involved in patient care. The average hospital-based clinical pharmacist makes rounds with doctors, suggests drug therapies and monitors patient responses. In ambulatory care clinics, clinical pharmacists ...

"Two steps forward, one step back" is an inescapable reality for substance-abuse social workers, in-demand counseling professionals who assist alcoholics and drug abusers on the road to recovery. These social workers recognize that chemical dependency is a chronic condition with a high rate of relapse, for which there is rarely a quick fix. "I've worked with people who have been in ...

If you want to work in healthcare but in a nonclinical role, check out the fast-growing health information management (HIM) field. A local school's health information technology (HIT) department can provide the necessary education. "We get a lot of people who want to work in the healthcare field without patient contact," says Anita Taylor, MEd, RHIA, CCS, chair of the HIT ...

I was a biology major in college, and always very artistic.  I considered medical illustration and occupational therapy as careers but several years after college I applied to dental schools.  It was very competitive at the time to get accepted, but I did get several acceptances.  I ended up attending Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.  The education is long and ...