Nurse aides do a lot of the basic physical duties in patient care settings --work calling for very intimate interaction with patients and tasks many view as unglamorous and messy.
It's a job with a high turnover rate, and the pay is not great, but federal labor projections forecast it as among the jobs with highest numerical growth through the year 2018.
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"It's a passion to help people, to see them smile," said Pitchford, 26, who is enrolled at Asher Comprehensive Training Center in South Richmond.
Caring for older people, she said, is something she's done from about age 8 when she helped care for her grandfather.
"Even if it was just rubbing his feet with Vaseline," Pitchford said.
Aging baby boomers will need workers like Pitchford to help them with basic activities of daily living.
About one of every four new jobs created in the United States through 2018 will be in health care and social assistance, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That includes 581,000 new job openings for registered nurses and 276,000 new jobs for nursing aides, orderlies and attendants. The forecast assumes full employment and comes with the disclaimer that it's uncertain what impact the recession that began in December 2007 will have on the projections.
Virginia's Healthcare Workforce Data Center projections released in January suggest a shortage in the state of 10,000 to 12,000 registered nurses by the year 2017, reaching a shortage of as many as 20,000 to 30,000 nurses by the 2028.
Along with the care demands of baby boomers, the nursing work force itself is aging.
Kevin Lamoreaux, 35, is switching gears at a good time. He was thinking of returning to nursing school even before his former employer Qimonda shut down its computer chip-making plant in eastern Henrico County.
He had been a nursing student years before, prior to joining the U.S. Navy.
"I enjoyed the work there [at Qimonda], but I wanted a job more rewarding," said the Hopewell resident, who is a student in John Tyler Community College's nursing program.
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"At the end of day, you go home and ask 'What did I really accomplish today?' . . . I didn't have that satisfaction," said Lamoreaux, who expects to graduate in December with a nursing degree.
Those fresh out of high school, laid off or looking ahead to future job security are considering jobs in health care, educators say.
Though job security may be fueling a lot of interest in health-care jobs, Lamoreaux said people shouldn't let that be their guiding reason.
"You have to want to help people. It's not a field you go into for the job security or money," Lamoreaux said.
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Entry-level health-care jobs can require just a few months of training, while some of the other health-related jobs projected to show strong growth require a graduate degree or higher.
Nurse aide jobs, which can pay as much as $12 an hour in the Richmond area, can be an entry position for people who plan to go higher in nursing as well as a destination job for others who like the personal interaction nurse aides have with patients.
The median wage for dental hygienists, another of the hot health jobs, was $66,570 in 2008, higher than the median wage for in-demand registered nurses at $62,450, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The median wage for physician assistants, another fast-growing health-care occupation, was $81,230.
Some physician assistants, particularly those who work in cardiothoracic surgery, can make six-figure salaries, said Brian Jalbert, 30, a physician assistant who trained at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Jalbert works in the emergency department at Memorial Regional Medical Center.
"The standard is pretty much a master's" degree, Jalbert said about the educational requirements. "Sometimes people don't know what physician assistants are. You have to educate them on what you do."
Educational programs are seeing growth as people seek to prepare themselves for health-care jobs.
At J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College and John Tyler Community College, enrollments are up in many allied health professions programs.
Training programs often are created to match community needs.
"I certainly look at the Department of Labor Statistics," said Deborah Ulmer, interim dean of health sciences at John Tyler.
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"I am also very aware of what our health-care agencies in this area are looking for. It's a balance. . . . Programs are expensive and equipment-intensive and time-intensive. You have to have people with credentials to teach them. Usually the student-to-faculty ratio is smaller in health-care programs. To fund that, we have to be careful we are offering what our community needs."
Some health jobs in demand, such as dental assistants, opticians and health records coding specialists, don't get a lot of attention but need workers.
"People who work behind the scenes or assist other licensed practitioners don't get as much exposure, so you don't know that opportunity exists," said Susan Hunter, dean of the school of nursing and allied health at J. Sargeant Reynolds.
Those jobs, Hunter said, can be a way to transition into career-ladder jobs.
In all, there are more than 300 allied health professions, said Don O'Donohue, assistant dean for nursing and allied health at Reynolds.
"Jobs are readily available in almost all these areas," said O'Donohue, going down a list of examples.
"The college is limited in its ability to advertise these programs. The professional organizations are limited. But there needs to be better public awareness," he said.
_©2010 Yellowbrix, Inc._
Health Care Jobs GrowingOriginally from: http://www.nursinglink.monster.com/news/articles/9739-health-care-jobs-growing
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