Audiologist
Assess and treat persons with hearing and related disorders. May fit hearing aids and provide auditory training. May perform research related to hearing problems.
How much education and experience would I need for this career?
These jobs typically require a Master's Degree or some other post-baccalaureate certification.
Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.
Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.
Would I like this career?
If you're one of the following types of people, you would probably like this career!
- Investigative - You like work activities that have to do with ideas and thinking more than with physical activity. You like to search for facts and figure out problems mentally rather than to persuade or lead people.
- Social - You like work activities that assist others and promote learning and personal development. You prefer to communicate more than to work with objects, machines, or data. You like to teach, to give advice, to help, or otherwise be of service to people.
Determine Your Personality Types
The personality types described in the above section are based on the Holland RIASEC Codes. To find out what type you are, you can take this simple test, or download a more complex interest profiler from O*NET Online. Once you know your primary and secondary personality types, come on back to find the best career in health care for you!
What kinds of things would I do on a daily basis?
- Educate and supervise audiology students and health care personnel.
- Counsel and instruct patients and their families in techniques to improve hearing and communication related to hearing loss.
- Evaluate hearing and balance disorders to determine diagnoses and courses of treatment.
- Program and monitor cochlear implants to fit the needs of patients.
- Participate in conferences or training to update or share knowledge of new hearing or balance disorder treatment methods or technologies.
- Conduct or direct research on hearing or balance topics and report findings to help in the development of procedures, technology, or treatments.
- Plan and conduct treatment programs for patients' hearing or balance problems, consulting with educators, physicians, nurses, psychologists, speech-language pathologists, and other health care personnel as necessary.
- Administer hearing tests and examine patients to collect information on type and degree of impairment, using specialized instruments and electronic equipment.
- Engage in marketing activities, such as developing marketing plans, to promote business for private practices.
- Recommend assistive devices according to patients' needs or nature of impairments.
- Work with multidisciplinary teams to assess and rehabilitate recipients of implanted hearing devices through auditory training and counseling.
- Perform administrative tasks, such as managing office functions and finances.
- Maintain patient records at all stages, including initial and subsequent evaluation and treatment activities.
What skills would I need to be successful in this career?
- Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
- Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
- Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
- Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
- Science - Using scientific rules and methods to solve problems.
- Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
- Active Learning - Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
- Learning Strategies - Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
- Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
- Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
- Coordination - Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
- Instructing - Teaching others how to do something.
- Service Orientation - Actively looking for ways to help people.
- Complex Problem Solving - Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
- Quality Control Analysis - Conducting tests and inspections of products, services, or processes to evaluate quality or performance.
- Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
- Systems Analysis - Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
- Systems Evaluation - Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
- Time Management - Managing one's own time and the time of others.