Majoring in Health Care
All over the nation, campuses are creating departments to provide courses to prepare students for a wide range of careers in health care. The traditional medical degree has diversified. Now you can straight away specialize in radiology, podiatry or optometry.
Other universities are offering foundational and general qualifications in the Science of Human Health that could lead to any one of thousands of career paths.
“And quite right too” says a holistic practitioner from Wales, “in general, we have become over-specialized – many medical practitioners have to refer patients to specialists, and more specialists, now we giving people a wider range of skills to start off with.”
Marquette University was the first college to implement the degree in human health and it soon became the most popular on campus
“It’s the fastest-growing major that this campus has ever seen,” said William E. Cullinan, associate chairman of the department of biomedical sciences at Marquette, in Milwaukee. “It just exploded beyond anyone’s imagination.”
The clear trend for students choosing courses today are courses with strong practical applications and given the growth in the healthcare sector, human health degrees are becoming very popular. Traditional subjects stagnate as more working-class and lower-middle-class attend college wanting more practical courses.
Degrees offered are designed to give the students a fundamental knowledge in science and health that can lead to any number of careers in the health services, from an MD to working in recruitment at a pharmaceutical company
“At a state university you have kids who are often economically challenged, and this is the stepping stone to a professional life,” says Debbie Zelizer, from Stony Brook College.
Academic medical degrees and placements in hospitals now require a post-graduate degree when before a Bachelor’s would do. So the fundamentals taught in these wide-ranging courses fill the gap needed for a general introduction for people who will go on to specialize later in life.
The major can easily be translated into a skill that can earn the student money straight after leaving college. They can choose to remain in that job or have a good job while they go on to postgraduate studies.
The programs often require backgrounds in biology, chemistry and math. And around 40% of graduates go on to medical school. The generalist nature of the courses often lead to students making informed decisions about taking a further major and simultaneously prepares them for it and gives them a trade. Is it any wonder they are proving so popular?
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