Chapter 2 Reading Assigment

CHAPTER #2

1. The health care labor force is divided into five general categories; doctors, nurses, therapists, technicians, and administration. Doctors, with their higher pay, knowledge, and prestige have given them greater control in the medical labor force. Nurses rank as the most numerous of laborers in the medical sector, accounting for three times the total number of doctors. In its earliest stages, nursing was seen as a dirty job and nurses were not respected for their work. Even though in the years following the start of the twentieth century nursing became a recognized career, the education requirements to become a nurse varied greatly between course curriculums. Today, nurses can gain a master's degree or doctorate of nursing. However, they still are not as prestigious and do not earn as much income as doctor's currently do. Therapists include a very broad category of health care personnel with numerous different specialties. They are not as prestigious as doctors, but more than nurses. Technicians work in hospital laboratories and assist in lab related tasks. Because they are not as educated and don't have as much training as technologists, they carry less prestige with their titles. The last of the categories is the administration. Administration carries a large load of essential and imperative to keeping a hospital up and running smoothly. These activities include monitoring extended care facilities, out-patient facilities, managed care settings, overseeing the record keeping and protecting the organization from malpractice issues. Although not as prestigious as the title of Doctor, they can earn just as much as if they practiced medicine.

2. Those scales are not valuable to the profession for which I am looking to build my career.