Exploring Health Care Careers, 2 Volume Set

Praise for the previous edition:
"The information provided is very accurate. This career resource set should be available to high school and college counselors...a solid resource for career collections."—School Library Journal

Over the next decade, the U.S. Department of Labor predicts that more than half of the fastest-growing occupations will be in health care. This fully revised two-volume set answers virtually any questions a reader may have concerning the opportunities, requirements, responsibilities, and expectations associated with jobs in health care. With an emphasis on interviews with professionals already at work in the field, this book presents pertinent career information in a lively and engaging style. Each of the more than 120 revised and updated articles contains an in-depth look at a particular health care career, describing necessary education and training, salary ranges, job outlook, and more. Interviews with professionals give readers a real sense of the day-to-day activities of the job.

New and revised coverage includes:

• Ten additional careers, including expanded coverage of careers in alternative medicine
• Photographs of health care professionals at work
• New and revised sidebars and bibliographies
• DOT and NOC (Canada) classification numbers for all careers, in addition to GOE and O*NET-SOC numbers.

Jobs covered include:

• Anesthesiologists
• Cardiovascular Technologists
• Dispensing Opticians
• Medical Laser Technicians
• Radiologists
• Surgical Technologists
• and more.

Grade 7 Up–These well-organized volumes list more than 100 careers in alphabetically arranged chapters. The range of coverage includes aromatherapists, hospice workers, neurologists, phlebotomists, and urologists. Each chapter opens with an interview with a person working in the field. This is followed by discussions of job tasks, personal qualities needed, educational and licensing requirements, scholarships and grants available, employers, advancement possibilities, salary ranges, and a projected outlook for the field. Sidebars break up the text and present information on recommended skills, words used in the profession, and historical facts and profiles of related people or events. New coverage of alternative and other careers, and two additional indexes of government career classification systems, update the last edition (2002). Lists of professional organizations and a bibliography of the most comprehensive and recent works available are found at the end of each chapter. Each volume has a table of contents. A total of five indexes including four that use government career classification systems enhance this usable resource. Exploring Health Careers (Thomson Delmar Learning, 2005) does not include as much information.–Debbie Stewart Hoskins, Grand Rapids Public Library, MI
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This outstanding set updates salary, job outlook, bibliographic, contact, and professional-organization information found in previous editions. New chapters profile "aromatherapists, Ayurvedic doctors and practitioners, dietitians and nutritionists, herbalists, HIV/AIDS counselors and case workers, holistic physicians, horticultural therapists, medical technologists, oriental medicine practitioners, and reflexologists." The more than 100 entries average seven or eight pages and cover the full range of medical specialties requiring an MD, as well as many careers that are less demanding and education intensive.

Each entry has 11 user-friendly sections including an introduction, an opening sidebar, job requirements, educational requirements, salary ranges, and job outlook. Many entries include a black-and-white photograph. Sidebars have been added or revised. The concluding section of each entry has a list of contact information for professional organizations and a bibliography. Volume 2 indexes chapter titles by the DOT, GOE, NOC, and O*NET SOC systems.

Entries often differ significantly in content from those found in the same publisher's outstanding Encyclopedia of Careers and Vocational Guidance (13th ed., 2005), which covers more than 740 careers in 5 volumes. The print is larger, entries are sometimes significantly longer and more thorough, and bibliographies are included. Moreover, entries in the new set add human interest by focusing on a real practitioner's experiences in several sections.

Exploring Health Care Careers is highly recommended for high-school, public, and academic libraries. In a personable style, it sheds great light on a wealth of career options. Craig Bunch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved