The health care industry is huge. It encompasses a variety of occupations ranging from medical doctors to speech language pathologists, from dentists to veterinarians. Educational requirements for this wid range of career choices, of course, vary as do credentials and salary levels. As with making any career choice, it is important that you get all the facts.
Below you will find links which provide a broad perspective to a range of career opportunities available in the health care field.
What is Work?
Work is what we do to earn a living. Work becomes part of who we are and how we define ourselves. The work we do and the jobs we hold over time, become our career; and a career lasts our entire working life.
Eight hours a day, five days a week, fifty two weeks a year, around two thousand hours per year, people are engaged in their careers, many for thirty to forty years. That is a huge commitment of time and a substantial portion of a person’s life.
- Why not be thoughtful about your career?
- Why not pursue a career that will be of interest to you for a long time?
- Why not choose a career rather than happen into one?
The nature of work is much different than it was a generation or two ago. It is far less common to find a job with a company and stay with that company your entire working life.
Companies are more interested in workers who come to them with the skills needed to perform specific tasks and less likely to hire someone at an entry level and provide opportunity for them to work their way up the company ladder. This means that when you are deciding on a career path you need to be realistic about what the marketplace is looking for in terms of skills. You also need to consider that where you begin your career will not likely be the same place, doing the same work, as when you finish your career.
Your career preparation needs to reflect the reality that you will need to regularly adapt to changes in the marketplace. Life-long learning, acquiring new skills and taking advantage of emerging employment opportunities characterize interesting dynamic careers that last a person’s entire work life.
Web Resources
Human Resources and Skills Canada
www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/home.shtml
Manitoba Advanced Education & Traning
www.edu.gov.mb.ca/labour/hdo_home.html
Manitoba Education, Citizenship & Youth
www.gov.mb.ca/educate/studentjobs
With 5 months – 1 years of training, you could become ...
- Medical Secretary
- Health Care Aide/Home Care Attendant
- Health Records Technician
- Paramedic
- Dental Assistant
- Pharmacy Technician
With 1 - 2 years of training, you could become ...
- Rehabilitation Assistant
- Licensed Practical Nurse
- Registered Nurse (Diploma)
With 3 years of training, you could become ...
- Medical Laboratory Technologist
- Radiological Technologist (X-Ray)
- Health Care Manager
With 4 years of training, you could become ...
- Athletic Therapist
- Dietitian
- Dental Hygienist
- Midwife
- Radiation Therapist
- Registered Nurse (BN, RPN)
- Ultrasound Technologist
- Respiratory Therapist
- Social Worker
- Public Health Inspector
With 5 years of training, you could become ...
- Occupational Therapist
- Physiotherapist
- Pharmacist
- Optometrist
5+ years of training, you could become ...
- Audiologist / Speech Language Pathologist
- Physician
- Psychologist
- Nurse Practitioner
- Dentist
- Chiropractor
- Physicians Assistant
- Veterinarian
