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Is every healthcare profession apart from Medicine saturated???

From what I've heard from numerous employers/family members, it seems everything in healthcare is saturated. My mum (a nurse) even said Nursing is getting saturated, which I find incredibly hard to believe! I also hear Dentistry is getting saturated now!

What have you guys heard? It's a shame, it seems like there's no way around saturation now...

Reply 1

purplelamp

I think it depends. My moms the sister in a neonatal ward and they are really short staffed at the moment, also I've heard that there is a huge shortage of midwives too. (Also asking my moms opinion she doesn't think it is saturated)
Whereas my dad is an infection control nurse (not for the NHS though) and they don't seem to have a shortage (but they don't need a big team :tongue:

)
I'm not sure about the others, but the courses are very popular :smile:

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Reply 2

coolerthanbeans

^Thanks for the reply :smile:

BUMP, would like to get more opinions :smile:

Reply 3

Ironmike

I'm a physio and if you mean by saturated as in too many people/too few jobs, then yes you could make that assumption. However, I would probably urge you to look at the wider picture. Everyone has a degree, and how many stories do you hear about graduates working in Mc Donalds for minimum wage, or pulling pints in the pub? I think that the value of a degree has gone down a lot over the past 30 - 40 years, and I think you could say that every professional occupation is now saturated from accountancy to zoology. It has become a case of yeah you have a degree but so does everyone else.

If you look at medicine, I don't think it's fair to say that it isn't saturated either. Yes, you have a guaranteed job at the end of your course should you want it, but how many people are rejected from university in the first place for every one who gets a place to study? I think with medicine you have a false picture when it comes to finding a job because so many thousands of people don't make it onto the course in the first place, and therefore the right number of doctors are trained to match to demand for juniors.

Truth is that competition for good jobs has always been high, and the healthcare professions are no different. It took me 11 months and a lot of failed interviews from graduating to getting my first NHS post. Some on my course only took a month or two and others are still unemployed two and a half years later.

I think if you are asking this question to gauge which is the easiest profession to find work in after graduating you are probably approaching things wrong. What's the point in having a job that you aren't interested in? Take it from someone who spent 7 years in computer programming and hated every waking minute of it, you don't want to do a degree just because the prospects look good. It is a factor sure, but there are certain healthcare professions you couldn't pay me enough to do!

I think there will always be cycles with professions. With physio, there was a massive problem with jobs a while back when the government put a freeze on physiotherapy recruitment due to budgetary constraints:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1524204/Physios-left-out-in-the-cold-by-NHS-freeze.html

The profession is only really starting to recover, and if you look at NHS jobs now, there is a fairly decent level of jobs advertised, although competition for big London hospitals remains very high.

Maybe nursing is about to go through its own crisis in that there are now too many nurses trained for the positions that are available. I don't know.

I would advise you to study what interests you and worry about the detail later.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 4

Happy_Holidays

Often jobs depend where you're willing to work. For example, in the ambulance service London is so short staffed they're recruiting from overseas because they just can't get the qualified staff. Manchester has similar problems as does mid and North Wales. Whereas areas like Devon and Cornwall rarely recruit because staff tend to stay there and they're more likely to fill positions through transfers from elsewhere in the trust. Some years there's more jobs than candidates, other years there's less, however, there's then always private work.

So no I wouldn't say the jobs market is saturated if you're willing to move and work in the places where your profession is actually required.

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