Health Care Jobs in Georgia

Georgia’s Augusta Chronicle reports that for people who have the right educational credentials, there are lots of jobs in the health care sector. Bob Livonius, the CEO of Medfinders, a health care staffing and recruiting company, said he sees a need for certified nursing assistants, home health aides and personal companions who work in home care. These don’t require a large investment in education, but the pay scale is relatively modest.

Demand is strong in physical and occupational therapy. Fully certified professionals in these fields hold master’s degrees, but in physical therapy there are physical therapy assistants who hold good jobs that become available with an associate’s degree.

At least in Georgia the much-reported nursing shortage eased somewhat during the recession as retired nurses returned to work and part-timers switched to full-time status. But there’s still a staffing deficit in specialty areas such as intensive care units and emergency rooms. Those positions go to RNs with training or experience in the specialty, and apparently there is also now a shortage in qualified faculty for nursing schools.

If you’ve run into a bottleneck for openings in traditional nursing programs, there are now online degrees in the field that have developed methods of providing the clinical training for RNs as well as the classroom work. Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNS) are paid at about two thirds the salary level for RNs, and obtaining certification in the field can be achieved in eighteen months.

The need for radiology technicians remain high, particularly for those who can manage
MRI exams or computerized tomography (CT) equipment. Generally these positions
require an associate’s degree. For some of these positions, however, you may find the need to go through some remedial math and science courses that you missed in high school.

It remains to be seen what impact the new health care plan – if it emerges from Congress – will have on employment opportunities. Certainly there will be a need for more MDs and highly trained medical professionals, but they will need support staffs as well. One area that remains understaffed and will continue to need trained personnel is health informatics. The computerization of health records continues at a rapid pace and will probably ramp up if mandatory health insurance becomes a part of the health care landscape.

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