Acute-Care

The majority of healthcare professionals work in acute-care hospital settings, whether in a large teaching hospital or in a small- to medium-sized community hospital.

In speaking with people who work in a hospital, their main reasons for having chosen these jobs are a higher level of patient acuity and salary.

Other benefits of working in an acute-care facility include: the opportunity to work in different areas and/or cross-train (e.g., a nurse can float to different units or move into QA, QI, risk management, or utilization review; a physical therapist can work with acute, ICU, and rehabilitation patients; a pharmacist does not just dispense; a general radiographer can be trained into CT); the ability to work with a multidisciplinary team; scheduling flexibility (i.e., not being limited to a regular-working-hours routine, as in some jobs); the ability to teach/precept students (not just medical students!); the size and scope of the hospital provides more opportunity to advance through charge, senior, supervisor, and manager roles.

Today, a larger hospital or system is often financially able to offer attractive recruitment packages, with higher salaries, better medical benefits, more continuing education opportunities, education/tuition assistance, etc.

Likewise a hospital (teaching and larger facilities, especially) tend to have the latest in equipment and techniques. A large hospital also tends to be involved with ongoing research, so if you have an interest in expanding your knowledge and the contents of your CV, consider jobs in acute-care hospitals.

Return to main article.

Discuss This Article

Have something you'd like to say? Tell us what you think! Read and post comments for this article.

Find a Job

Choose your career:

MedHunters is the world's biggest healthcare job board. Our job directory has 16,110 jobs with 2,333 hospitals and other direct employers.

We want you to find your next job on MedHunters. Need Help? Call us at 1-888-884-8242, email us at info@medhunters.com or sign up now.