Hands-on training -- and sometimes guarantees of a job after graduation -- attract people of all ages to programs for nurses, pharmacy techs, radiology techs and other health professions.
BY VANESSA GARCIA Miami Herald
''There has been and will continue to be in the decades ahead a shortage in aesthesia providers, nurses and doctors,'' says Robert Wagner, program director and assistant professor of the anesthesiologist assistants program at Nova Southeastern University.
Services at the University of MiamiAt age 54, Erma Ducasa has gone back to school to become a nurse.
At 41, Angela Okonta also has returned to school to study nursing.
Mid-career switchers like these two women are lining up next to high school graduates to become nurses, as well as radiological technicians, pharmacy techs and anesthesiologist assistants.
SCHOLARSHIP OPTIONS
There's a good reason for the broad appeal: Most nursing and allied health programs in South Florida offer on-the-job training in hospitals and medical centers that are hungry for employees. Some of the programs offer scholarships to pay for classes in exchange for students agreeing to work at a participating hospital for several years after graduation.
It's job security at its best in a tough economy, making careers in these health professions practically ``recession-proof.''
''There's never been a better time to be a nurse,'' says Dean Nena Peragallo of the School of Nursing and Health Services at the University of Miami. ``Nurses cannot be outsourced.''
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