- Identify the two careers you explored and why you chose those careers (i.e. skills assessment results, friend/family recommendation, previous experiences, etc.).
- Discuss the factors that make the healthcare jobs you explored unique.
- What are the specific pros and cons of working in the professions you investigated? Do the pros outweigh the cons? Explain your rationale.
- Is there one career you prefer over the other? Why or why not?
Week 2 Discussion: Career Options
The two careers I like to choose are Dieticians & Nutritionists and Health Education Specialists.
Dieticians & Nutritionists
Food has always worked as an excellent source of therapeutic remedies in ancient times (Bishop, Witts & Martin, 2018, p.45). At the earliest age before the emergence of medical facilities, drugs, and medications, people always rely on natural healthy sources for the treatment of any disease or health ailment. These magical aspects of food and their nutritional properties along with their medicinal values always attract me to the profession of dietician and nutritionist.
This job is very unique and has a huge demand nowadays because dieticians have the potential to cure a disease without the help of drugs and medicines simply by the use of food.
The pros of this profession include assessment of the nutritional status, preparation of a healthy diet plan, nutritional counseling, evaluation of the laboratory and anthropometric measurement, providing nutritional recommendations, and the foremost part is motivating the individuals in the development of a healthy lifestyle. The cons are that the treatment is time-consuming, as the result can’t be observed as abruptly as the effect of the medicine, but the pros will always overcome the cons because this will benefit the individual in the long term with no side effects and help in the holistic development of the individual.
Health Education Specialists
Communication and helping others always remain my favorite activity that inspires me the selection a career as a health education specialist. Working at the grassroots level, and with the people always attracts me and this profession provides me ample opportunities to serve my purpose.
This role is very unique because it has no boundaries and can be worked as an extension worker.
The pros of this profession include, at the community level, this professional aims to educate the individual, family, and the community regarding good health care practices, hygiene sanitization, immunization, and many more (Stellefson et al. 2020, p.1152). This will always help in the diagnosis of the community diseases like HIV, malaria, and many more. Not only do they diagnose the disease but also help them with the right guidance to overcome that. Their data and surveys always help in the implementation of the general program, schemes, and other policies. With the help of Audio Visual Aids (AVA), they are able to educate the mass population about the need of society. Although it is usually done on a huge scale of the population and for that ample amount of workers and skilled people, proper training and facilities are required. These can be considered cons of this profession, but anyways the pros will always overcome the cons.
The career I prefer over the others is the Dietician & Nutritionist, because this will make me introduced to a variety of new cases of disease every day and will motivate me more to research those diseases, to cure them with the help of traditional food practices. It will also help me to enrich my knowledge in the domain of a variety of foods and their medicinal practices.
References:
Bishop, A., Witts, S., & Martin, T. (2018). The role of nutrition in successful wound healing. J Community Nurs, 32(4), 44-50.
Stellefson, M., Paige, S. R., Chaney, B. H., & Chaney, J. D. (2020). Evolving role of social media in health promotion: Updated responsibilities for health education specialists. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(4), 1153.
