Thoughts

The Ultimate Careers For Caring People

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It’s one thing to have a caring nature, it’s quite another to actually want to devote your life to caring for people and making a difference in their lives. While most people would suggest that you become a nurse, there are hundreds of other caring professions that you might want to explore. Working in a caring business will never be well paid and will always be emotionally draining. The fact that you are willing to overlook these things shows just how committed you are to a caring profession.

Being part of the caring profession means that you will be having an impact on people’s lives on a daily basis. Yes, the work may be tough and leave you feeling low at the end of some days, but others will be full of joy when you see just how much of a positive impact you are having on people. Improving quality of life and being a constant in the lives of vulnerable people is admirable and takes a lot of commitment. Your job will be varied, you will get to meet new people and you will have the chance of career progression, even if you don’t get the financial remuneration package that most of society believes the caring profession is worth. If you are keen to go down the caring profession route, whether you are a college leaver or a career switcher, take a look at these potential roles you might want to consider.

Occupational Therapist

Rather than focus on nursing, consider if you’d like to work with a certain demographic instead. As an occupational therapist, most of your time will be spent helping older people who are keen to cling onto their independence within their own homes, but will need support in doing so. This is where you come in. With specialist equipment and strategies, you can help elderly individuals stay within their own home safely. With you by their side, they will be able to make a cup of tea without scalding themselves. They will be able to bathe themselves with the newly installed walk in bath that you arranged to have fitted. You will be able to guide your patients and help them live independent lives.

The individuals you work with might have suffered from a stroke or a fall, or they may have neurological conditions. These may not require immediate admission to a care home, but without you, this could be the end result. To help people stay comfortable and safe, you will keep in touch with your patients. You will drive to their homes once or twice a week to monitor their progress and to initiate new programmes to help if needed. Your schedule will be busy, but you will have a varied job, working set hours and meeting lots of people.

Dentist

If you have a thing for teeth, the chances are that you’ve already considered the dentistry profession. As a dentist, you will be responsible for people’s pearly whites. However, if you choose to specialize you can care for those in more serious accidents or with facial disfigurements that require more specialist dental care. This is a highly skilled role that requires a lot of qualifications and study. However, the financial rewards of this career can be lucrative.

Working in hospitals or in private practice, patients will be referred to you for consultation. Many of these individuals will have been embarrassed by their smiles for years. As a dentist, it’s your job not only to fix their teeth in a physiological sense, but you will also be responsible for improving their confidence. Through your skills and actions, you will be revolutionizing their life. They will now be able to smile in photographs, and not feel embarrassed in social situations. As a dentist, you will be an excellent problem solver, and understand the importance of working methodically and carefully.

Lawyer

As a lawyer, you can choose what field to specialize in, whether this is criminal law, family law or personal injury. As a lawyer it is your job to prosecute or defend. However, at the center of both roles is a need to protect the person you are working for and to seek justice. This is why becoming a lawyer can be thought of as a caring profession. Depending on what field you choose to work in, you could be defending individuals who have had collisions in their car that wasn’t their fault to ensure that their medical bills are paid and that they have the necessary compensation for their suffering. Alternatively, you could specialize in helping war heroes returning injured from the battlefield or when stationed overseas. By representing veterans in military hospital malpractice cases, you can play a little part in helping them settle back into civilian life.

 

Lawyers can get a hard time in society for appearing to be money grabbers with little care for the people they are representing, but there are good ones out there. You might even want to help families struggling to sort out the custody of their kids. Finding a fair result keeps a family talking. It is up to you to be a committed and caring lawyer, helping put the right people behind bars, and making sure the right people get the compensation that they deserve.

Nutritionist

As a nutritionist, you can spend your working life helping people develop a healthier relationship with food. Some people overeat or binge eat, leading to health problems. This can put a huge stress on the health system and hospitals. Other people exert control over their eating in an unhealthy sense. This can lead to eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia. As a nutritionist, you need to work with delicate individuals with mental health issues. This can result in a lot of frustration when all you want to do is help people. However, you need to formulate a different strategy for each patient; what works for one person may not work for the next.

Constructing new eating plans for your patients requires a lot of time and effort. It’s vital that you work with them as part of a team rather than dictating to them. Some patients will need to be admitted to hospital for their own wellbeing. Nutritionists can play a crucial role in saving people’s lives. Those individuals with eating disorders can become painfully thin and their organs can begin to shut down. It’s important that you can work with a team of other medical professionals including doctors and nurses to save lives.

Counselor

If you would like to work in the medical profession, but not in nursing, the role of a counselor could be for you. Working with individuals from all different walks of life, you will be the listening ear that will help them overcome the issues causing them problems in their life. This could range from the woman who has agoraphobia and finds it impossible to leave the house to the man who has a phobia of spiders. One morning you might be working with a child who is trying to overcome the trauma of abuse, while in the afternoon you could be helping an army veteran who is struggling to overcome what he saw on the battlefield and is suffering from PTSD.

 

Counselors need to be good listeners and need to ask the right probing questions to help people view their issues through different eyes. It is not up to you provide solutions, but to facilitate the awakening of them within your patient. A counselor will see an individual short term for up to four weeks or chronically for years on a fortnightly or monthly basis. It’s important that these individuals do not become your friends. You must maintain a professional boundary however hard this may be. A counselor needs to work with other medical professionals to ensure that the care remains nuanced and focused. You may have to retrain and improve your skillset to make it in the competitive world of counseling.

If you want to work with kids, but the thought of working in a hospital leaves you in a cold sweat, why not work in a school instead. As a teacher assistant, you can work with a team of professionals who are eager to help children reach their full potential. You could find yourself working one to one with a child with special educational needs or you might be supporting the whole class. Taking guidance from the teacher, you will have a real impact in helping young people understand complex ideas, concepts and methods. Equipping them with the tools to work out problems, work independently and apply what they have learned, you will be helping the youth of today become the world citizens of tomorrow.Working with kids can be fun, stressful and varied, so enjoy the ride!

 

Being a caring professional isn’t always fun and it’s rarely easy. However, your job will be having a positive impact on people’s lives, whether that’s educating them, saving their lives, or improving their smiles. There will be a caring role out there that is perfect for you.

 

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