How To Become An Asthma Specialist
An asthma specialist specializes in treating this sickness include allergists, internists, pediatricians, pulmonologists and pulmonary rehabilitation therapists. The kind of career you choose will depend on the kind of patients you want to treat or the aspect of asthma management and treatment you want to focus on.
If you wish to treat asthma in children, you need to get education and training as a pediatrician. If you’d rather treat asthma in adults, you can opt to get training as an internist. Take note, however, that both pediatricians and internists don’t just focus on treating asthma but also handle other diseases that afflict children and adults, respectively. Both of these medical doctors may opt to get additional training in allergy and immunology to be able to treat allergies, asthma and allergic asthma to their respective patients. Another sub-specialization that you may want to pursue further studies in if you are a pediatrician or immunologist is in pulmonology. As a pulmonologist, you can specialize in treating respiratory diseases, including asthma.
With additional training and certification, you can even provide critical care to patients. If medical school is too long a path for you to become an asthma specialist, you can choose to become a pulmonary rehabilitation therapist. Your main role is to provide asthmatic patients with pulmonary rehabilitation techniques as well helpful information that will enable them to manage their asthma more effectively.
Regardless of your profession, a career as an asthma specialist will put you in contact with patients whose lives are affected with asthma. You need to be compassionate and understanding especially if they are suffering and in distress. You also need to pay very close attention to detail so you can diagnose patients correctly. This also goes together with problem solving skills since you need to be able to look at the patient’s symptoms, make the correct diagnosis and prescribe the medication that will provide them with the necessary relief.
Why Become An Asthma Specialist
A career as an asthma specialist is best suited for those who want to work with patients suffering from this affliction. This is a very fulfilling profession for those who want a career that would enable them to help people every day. Asthma specialists typically earn lucrative salaries, making this another motivation to pursue this profession. There will continue to be demand for medical doctors in the next few years as people become more concerned about their health, assuring aspiring asthma specialists of a good number of employment opportunities in the next few years.
Asthma Specialist Work Environment
Asthma specialists typically work in clinics or their own private practices. They are also found in hospitals, healthcare organizations and other healthcare settings. If doctors working in their private clinics have patients who are confined in hospitals, they may need to travel from their clinic to the hospital to do their rounds and monitor the condition of their patients. The work is typically done fulltime during regular hours. However, it’s common for doctors who work in large hospitals to work at night, during weekends or on holidays since these operate 24 hours a day. If they are on call then they must respond to calls from the hospital to be there whenever they are needed by a patient.
Asthma Specialist Salary
The salary of an asthma specialist will depend on their respective professions. The Occupational Employment and Wages report of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that the mean annual salary of pediatricians is $170,350 while that of internists is $188,440. All other physicians and surgeons, including allergists and pulmonologists, are paid a mean annual salary of $187,200. Respiratory therapists, meanwhile, earn $57,880 a year.
Asthma Specialist Career Outlook
The career outlook of doctors and surgeons, the broader occupational category where asthma specialists belong to, is set to be very bright for the next few years. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that the employment rate is set to rise 18 percent, a rate that is faster than the average for all job types. The demand will come from the growth of the elderly population who will require more medical care as well as the continued expansion of the industries related to healthcare. More job opportunities await those who are willing to practice in rural and low-income communities.
Asthma Specialist Degree
One must be ready to spend a lengthy time in school to become an asthma specialist. Before one can enter formal medical school, he must complete a four-year undergraduate degree, preferably one related to the sciences. Formal medical school takes another four years to finish. After this, they would have to spend four to eight years to complete their residency training to be able to specialize in a particular field, such as pediatrics or internal medicine. Further specialization in fields like allergy or pulmonology will require an additional two to three years of training.
