Physician's Assistant

A little known career opportunity in the medical profession is the physician’s assistant. A physician is a general practitioner of medicine who has completed at least four undergraduate years of college and four years of med school along with three to eight years of internship and residency. A physician’s assistant is a person who has completed four years of undergraduate college coursework and two to four years in a certification program alongside a physician. The overall appeal of one over the other is that a physician’s assistant can practice medicine on a quicker time table without the expense or hassle of med school.

Physician’s assistants have many of the same responsibilities of the actual physician. They take medical histories, examine and treat patients, order tests, and provide preventative healthcare services. In some cases, they can even write prescriptions, usually under the supervision of the practicing physician for whom he or she works. Physician’s assistants do especially well for themselves in less fortunate or poverty stricken regions. They can run clinics for days if the practicing physician is to busy to make it in to the office. A lot of personal responsibility rests on the hands of the physician’s assistant, and this exciting, in-demand career is lucrative in many ways.

Helping others is the physician’s assistant’s main goal. He or she is usually the first to greet a patient, and acts as the liaison to the physician. He or she will dress minor wounds and burns, and will treat less serious illnesses, working directly with patients and families. They must be caring and hospitable with a good bedside manner. They must be friendly, but also know when to be serious. Many physician’s assistants hold more than one job with more than one clinic.

Being a physician’s assistant helps individuals gain experience in the medical field. It is better for a person to become an assistant first to determine if he or she is on the right career path, and this is true for any field. This way, time and money isn’t wasted becoming a doctor when the passion for practicing medicine isn’t there. And if it is, all the more information to put on a med school application! Nothing looks better on any application or resume than real world, out of the classroom experience.

Employment for the PA is expected to grow faster than the average compared to other occupations. The main reason for this is that PAs are a cost effective way of providing good healthcare. There are physician assistant jobs everywhere, at every socio-economic level. Other than private practices and hospitals, physician assistants can be found in rural clinics, community health centers, freestanding surgical facilities, nursing homes, college-based facilities, industrial settings, and correctional systems. They do make a substantial amount of money, though not as much as a fully qualified doctor. Yet, in this ever-plummeting economy cost efficiency is more important than ever, and sometimes taking a step down can lead to some very rapid steps up in the future

Medicine

When asked about medicine, the first thing a typical person thinks of is drugs, be it pills, intravenous fluids, topical ointments, or some other sort of magical germ fighting agent that is introduced to the body. While most ailments can be cured with one of the aforementioned methods, the use and practice of medicine is a much broader and intricate web involving various types of treatments. Some methods are a tad more exotic than others, but medicine as a whole is more or less a leap of faith both for doctors and patients. The question isn’t necessarily which medicine to take, but how to improve the overall health of an individual.

New age medicine is deemed by many to be a silly hoax, a way for hippies to make money preaching the benefits of weekly acupuncture whilst breathing incense smoke. Although there may be some truth to the skepticism, scientists and doctors have proven just how valuable faith can be to the healing process. This faith refers not only to faith in a higher power, but also to the faith one carries within him or herself, faith in the strength of mind over matter, wellness over sickness.

Strength of mind is just as essential to the practice of medicine as are the drugs people take. For example, the Cancer Treatment Centers of America use many different types of new age “faith” medicine when treating cancer patients. Some of these methods include acupuncture, chiropractic care, image enhancement, mind-body medicine, naturopathic medicine, and spiritual support. While the first two are common physical alternatives used by the general population, the last four are almost entirely mental, and probably not used nearly enough.

Image enhancement, in short, is a way to promote self-esteem and good body image amongst patients. When a person feels good about the way he or she looks, that person will generally feel more confident. Those happy feelings branch out into other aspects of the consciousness, improving overall health. No one looks good when afflicted with illness, so why is image enhancement therapy not more commonly used in everyday medicine?

Mind-body medicine is similar to image enhancement therapy. Mind-body medicine charges the patient with projecting images of well-being and wholeness. The idea is that if the mind is sound and balanced, then the body should follow suit. If a person believes that he or she is getting better that person might actually get better. Thinking positively has profound impacts on the wellness of an individual.

Naturopathic medicine encompasses the body, mind and environment. In a healthy environment, with a healthy mindset, eating healthy, wholesome foods, a person will feel healthier overall. In taking in the pure environment, the natural flow of life, a person connects to his or her humanity, and, in doing so, can begin the path to wellness.

Another method of non-drug related medicine is spiritual support. Believing in the divine, a benevolent being to love, who provides shelter and peace, is a good way of easing the mind while struggling with illness. Praying for healing and release from pain can be soothing, and may actually help one’s outlook on life.

All these methods focus on positive thinking. The ability of a person to heal oneself resides in the individual. If one is strong of mind and heart, then one can become strong of body. There’s no harm in thinking positively as a way of finding peace, so why would anyone restrict oneself to physical drugs?

Doctor

For nearly everyone, nothing is more terrifying than preparing for a lengthy stay at the hospital. Everything is restricted within those walls, including a person’s diet, visitors, activities, and daily routines. There is a feeling of entrapment, the uncertainty of life and death. Along with that is the worry over whether or not a treatment will work, and what havoc the side-effects of such a treatment will wreak on a frail and tired body. After a while, one wonders whether he or she will be allowed to go home again to enjoy a hot cooked meal and a shower. While these are all realistic, valid concerns, sometimes one must set aside these anxieties to deal with the chore of getting well.

Recovering from an illness is a physically and mentally trying ordeal. It takes patience and support from loved ones, as well as inner faith of the individual. Everyone is faced with the human condition, and plenty have already been in those same shoes. Take comfort in knowing that fear is normal; the unknown is always scary, especially when one is dealing with real life. The one thing every hospital-bound person needs to remember is that he or she is not alone.

There are many ways to deal with a fear of hospitals. The first most recommended thing to do is take a tour of the hospital. Knowing one’s surroundings can have a comforting effect, and may relieve some of the anxiety related to plunging into the unknown. It is best to note where the nurses’ stations are since they are the primary care givers after one’s actual doctor. Familiarity also reduces the stress of having to go back later for outpatient treatment.

Another method of hospital fear management is familiarizing oneself with the treatment. Rather than be poked and prodded by strange tubes and machines, understand what these tests are for and how they are going to help diagnose and/or treat. Become familiar with hospital protocol; ask questions like: When are meals served? When do visiting hours end? What is the patient to nurse ratio?

As one becomes familiar with the hospital and the treatments, it is also important to become familiar with the staff. Get to know the doctors and nurses who will be treating you. It is easier to trust someone with whom one is familiar than a perfect stranger. Makes sure the staff knows who you are and why you are there. This will cut down on the possibility of mistakes as well as increase the overall comfort level of both parties.

Stay positive and let comfortable things surround you. If given permission, bring a security blanket, be it a book, a doll, a letter of encouragement, or an actual blanket. Bringing home to the hospital helps maintain a sense of serenity, the feeling of home being where the heart is. The more comfortable the environment around a person, the easier dealing with treatment is going to be.

Overcoming a fear of hospitals is really just the same as overcoming any fear. It means dealing with the unfamiliar and making it a part of oneself. The more one familiarizes something scary with something he or she loves and appreciates, the less the thing itself imposes on the individual.

Ultrasound Imaging

Ultrasound technicians, also known as sonographers, are in increasing demand in the medical field. Since ultrasound imaging is generally preferred over other medical diagnostic tools, ultrasound technicians are beginning to have a more dominant role in diagnosing and treating patients. Ultrasounds are typically painless and noninvasive with little to no risk involved during the imaging, making it popular amongst patients and doctors alike. Hospitals, labs, clinics, private practice offices, and public health facilities are just a few examples of the settings in which ultrasounds are utilized. Most sonographers, however, work in hospitals because of the variety of cases and the flexibility of the hours. By using the ultrasound machine on many patients with varying conditions, sonographers get the advantage helping more people and the bonus of gaining priceless on the job training.

These non-physician professionals are extremely versatile, exhibiting a wide array of skills, the most important of which is patient care. An ultrasound technician is a people person who looks forward to the chance to learn something new every day. He or she has a good bedside manner and is strong when the patient cannot be. The ultrasound technician must have endless compassion and understanding when imaging for the tragedy of breast cancer. He or she should also feel excitement when showing a new mom the first image of her unborn child. Successful sonographers treat each patient like an individual, making him or her feel safe and welcome, no matter the reason for the procedure. Diagnostic tests can be frightening, and more often than not, unfortunately, the sonographer is responsible for finding bad news. The most important quality is having the grace to deliver that news in a calm and reassuring manner.

The career opportunities for an ultrasound technician are bountiful, and as technology surges ever forward in the medical and diagnostic field, the demand for sonographers is rapidly increasing. Again, this is because more and more patients are requesting safer alternatives to MRI’s and X-Rays for diagnosing. Unlike its predecessors, the ultrasound does not use radiation which can be harmful to the delicate cells in children and in adult reproductive organs. Instead, it basically works like echolocation, the method by which bats and some underwater creatures “see” in the dark.

A sound wave is sent through the skin, and then a super-sensitive microphone records how long it takes for the sound to travel back, or, to echo. Depending upon when and how the echo sounds, a picture image is created which reflects the shapes that created the initial echo. Ultrasound images are created in real time since the sound waves are constantly pulsing. This is how we can see a fetus’ heart beating, or blood flowing through an artery. This is useful if the sonographer is specifically looking for a problem with how blood is flowing to the heart. Sometimes a sonogram can pick up a leak that an MRI or an X-Ray would miss altogether. Again, this procedure is painless, with the only discomfort sometimes caused by the transducer. The transducer is the small handheld device that is pressed against the skin in order to send out the sound waves and create the image. Ultrasound technicians use a jelly on the skin to prevent air bubbles from clouding the image. The pressure placed upon the transducer can cause mild discomfort if a sonographer is using the ultrasound to image a part of the body that is already sore, but this is very rare.

Since ultrasounds work without a magnet, they are also preferable when dealing with patients with preexisting medical conditions. Some patients have pins and rods in their bodies to hold together broken bones and spinal injuries. If someone with surgical pins from a broken arm in adolescence was experiencing stomach pains as an adult, the doctor would have to rule out the possibility of an MRI for fear of ripping his patient’s arm apart. An ultrasound would be much safer in diagnosing the stomach pains, and would also be almost as accurate.

Sonographers have many methods of ultrasound technology at their disposal. Specifically, there is the conventional use of the ultrasound machine, as well as the three types of Doppler ultrasound. Conventional ultrasounds are more focused on certain parts of the body, displaying muscle and tissue images with staggering accuracy, whereas Doppler ultrasounds focus on the blood flow thru the arteries and veins. Color and power ultrasounds are used to display images of blood flow; color ultrasounds are more accurate in demonstrating flow direction, and power ultrasounds are more accurate in flow detail. Spectral ultrasounds show the flow rate graphically. These different types of ultrasound each yield their own value to the medical field by allowing technicians and physicians the ability to make multiple diagnoses with one test. Professional technicians are responsible for mastering the art of interpreting all four.

Along with the four different types of ultrasound technology come the various medical fields in which technicians can choose to practice. By choosing a particular practice, sonographers become more experienced and reputable, furthering their careers and upping the level of patient comfort and care. Specializing typically allows for more flexibility with a technician’s work week, and may also aid in moving up a pay scale.

Sonographers have the option of specializing in abdominal imaging, vascular, neurological, obstetrical/gynecologic, and ophthalmic, or eye, ultrasound, the most common of which is the OB/GYN. Sonographers play a key role in keeping unborn infants alive and well during a woman’s pregnancy. They are trained to identify the sex of an infant, and to make sure that the baby is healthy and safe. As a sonographer, one can help bring future generations of healthy children into the world.

Training to become a sonographer is not quite the trying process that is training to become a physician. Certificates in ultrasound technology can be achieved in as little as eighteen months, and some bachelor degree programs can be completed in just three short years. There are many higher education options available to the aspiring sonographer. He or she can go the certificate route, can complete an Associate’s degree, or even finish an entire Bachelor’s degree program. Many teaching hospitals allow for tuition reimbursement depending upon the level of academic achievement by a training technician. Associate’s programs prepare sonographers for entry level positions with the opportunity to gain on the job insight, whereas Bachelor’s degree candidates can start in higher paid, more specialized positions. Each type of certification impacts the specialization and pay scale of the ultrasound technician. The more education, the more money one can earn and the more flexibility in hours. This field is recommended for people who love to learn since ultrasound technicians never really finish their education. Every patient is a new experience to learn more about the profession.

All ultrasound technician programs require a high school diploma or GED, and some programs require entrance exams, interviews and professional references. If a technician expects to be successful, he or she should attend a school that is affiliated with the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP) since the American Registry of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers (ARDMS), the official credential registry, only recognizes technicians who have gone through CAAHEP’s channels. Students who do not attend an affiliated school will have to work for year and then sit for a test to gain membership to the ARDMS. It is much easier to find work overall once a sonographer is already a member of ARDMS, so it’s definitely better to avoid the middle man entirely.

The coursework for an ultrasound student is very hands-on because schools with certification programs want to be sure that they are only sending qualified professionals into the medical field. Students will learn to identify the parts of the ultrasound machine, operate the machine, as well as interpret the images onscreen. Classes include anatomy and physiology, human biology, medical terminology and ethics, and Doppler sonography. Just like doctors must complete field hours, most sonographer certification programs also require an unpaid internship in a professional ultrasound setting.

Becoming an ultrasound technician is a rewarding and lucrative field. Working directly with patients to help them lead better, healthier lives is more fulfilling than one could imagine. Add in the fact that there is a lot of room for advancement, and the attractiveness of a career in sonography increases twofold. Experienced sonographers can move on to become chief ultrasound technologists and technical directors. Most sonographers average about a $50,000 annual salary and have a forty hour work week. Many sonographers are paid an additional on-call rate and work weekends as well, if they desire. There are also many career opportunities available in education and research since ultrasound technology is becoming ever more sophisticated and wide-spread by the day. Teaching future ultrasound technicians is just as important as becoming one, and more and more lives are saved every day thru the continuing research in advanced ultrasound imaging. Whether one chooses to go into teaching, researching, or patient care, the ultrasound technician is a very important part of the medical field.