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Healthy Prospects
Graduates of NYIT’s School of Health Professions, Behavioral and Life Sciences find ample opportunities as they enter the job market.
By Angela Marshall
The windows outside Professor Larry Herman’s office are covered with job postings. His e-mail is packed with them, and the phone keeps ringing. Herman, senior clinical coordinator of NYIT’s physician assistant (PA) program, says finding a job after graduation is not the problem for his students; rather, they are faced with the challenge of deciding which to take of the three or four jobs they have been offered. “And these aren’t just any jobs,” he says. “They’re great jobs.”
Similar “problems” plague graduates from NYIT’s occupational therapy (OT) and physical therapy (PT) programs. All three careers made the U.S. Department of Labor’s list of the top 30 fastest-growing occupations through the year 2012.
“Many people are aware of the desperate need for nurses throughout the country, but demand in other healthcare fields is just as high,” says Dr. Chukuka S. Enwemeka, dean of the School of Health Professions, Behavioral and Life Sciences. “Seeing a need in the marketplace and striving to provide top-quality professionals to fill that void is part of NYIT’s overall mission of career-oriented education.”
Enwemeka believes the need for professionals in these healthcare fields will continue to grow steadily for the foreseeable future, and NYIT in turn will grow to help meet that need. Enrollment in the School of Health Professions, Behavioral and Life Sciences has already increased 10 percent in the last two years, according to Enwemeka.
Consistent with trends in the medical industry, NYIT offers PT at the doctorate level, OT at the master’s level and is planning to replace its bachelor’s degree in PA with a master’s program next year.
One hundred percent of NYIT’s PA grads have passed their boards since the program started in 1999; and, Enwemeka says, the OT and PT success rates are at high levels as well. Such statistics show the quality of the program and open the doors for graduates to get great jobs, he adds.
Herman recalls hearing from one student days before graduation last May. The student was concerned that he hadn’t been offered a job yet. Herman told the student to relax, something would develop. The next day, the student called the professor back and said he now had three job offers. “His dilemma was that he wanted to take all three,” Herman laughs.
Hermine Plotnick, chair of the school’s OT program, says all of the OT grads have several job offers as well. “It’s a really hot market,” she says. Karen Friel, chair of the PT program, is equally enthusiastic, saying every student who wants a job after graduation gets one.
STRONG SKILLS AND DEMAND
Herman says there are a number of factors contributing to the anticipated increase of PAs, including a predicted shortage of physicians in America and the disproportionate allocation of physicians throughout the country.
But Herman does not believe the increasing demand for PAs accounts for NYIT’s high job-placement rates. He credits the school’s diversified internship program with creating well-rounded, highly skilled candidates. NYIT’s PA program requires students to do four-to-eight-week internships at several facilities during their studies, including St. Francis Hospital, St. Barnabas Hospital and Winthrop University Medical Center.
In addition to ensuring students are exposed to several different specialties — internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, gerontology and more — Herman says this requirement introduces them to dozens of potential employers.
This comprehensive training program worked wonderfully for Jason McGrade, (B.S. ’03). A couple of months before graduation, he was interning at Long Island Jewish Medical Center where he had the opportunity to network with professionals from Lenox Hill Hospital. They encouraged him to apply at the Manhattan hospital, and now he works with Valavanur A. Subramanian, M.D., a noninvasive-heart-surgery pioneer. He is honored to be working with one of the top cardiac surgeons in the country and says that he owes much of his success to attending NYIT.
Daniel Varghese (B.S. ’02) opened up his own consulting company last year. He was a nuclear technologist before deciding to go back to school to become a PA. Now he combines his former career with his new skills and specializes in nuclear cardiology.
Varghese says he was greatly influenced by professors in the PA department. In fact, he plans to come back to NYIT to teach. “I owe a lot to the college, and I intend to give back.”
LET’S GET PHYSICAL
John Angeles (B.S. ’01) is another alumni who plans to come back to NYIT. He is enrolled in the school’s new transitional doctor of PT program. “I could have enrolled in other doctorate programs,” he says. “But I knew the quality of an NYIT degree and patiently waited until the college launched its own doctoral program.”
The PT internship program is similar to that required by the PA program. Students work in medical facilities such as Kings Park Physical Therapy, Long Island Orthopedic and Bi-County Physical Therapy. They obtain experience in a number of specialties, including orthopedics, acute care and long-term rehabilitation.
When asked what sets NYIT’s PT program apart, Dr. Peter Douris, an associate professor and former chair of the PT department, says he is proud of the strong manual-therapy approach and the great emphasis placed on teaching hands-on techniques.
Another differentiating factor is the program’s commitment to creating lifelong learners. Douris says, “We teach students to be critical thinkers and educated consumers of research.”
Students must be able to think for themselves, Douris says, because they will be faced with interpreting new information and understanding new treatments. Graduates must be able to question whether there is evidence to support this information, he notes, and be able to adapt to new techniques.
A WORTHY OCCUPATION
When it comes to NYIT’s OT program, Russ Tavroff (B.S. ’02) says it is the real-world training that prepared him for his chosen career. Tavroff, formerly a restaurant manager, is now director of OT at the Forestview Center for Rehabilitation in Queens, N.Y. He knew he wanted a career in medicine, and his wife, Sheri Pyser Tavroff (B.S. ’00), suggested OT. From the first, he says, “It grabbed me. I loved it.”
Sheri Tavroff says she chose NYIT because its program was brand-new when she attended and its professors were so enthusiastic. They were committed to making it the best program possible, she notes, and she felt like she and the program “grew together.”
In addition, she appreciates that students are required to try different types of clinics during their 32-weeks of internships. “It really encourages us to discover what we enjoy doing,” she says. She chose to specialize in pediatrics and now does homecare because it lets her spend more time with son Jake. Although the Tavroffs are expecting their second child, the strength of the OT job market should mean Sheri Tavroff won’t have trouble finding more work when she comes back from maternity leave.
Much of the current and future growth in the OT job market can be attributed to aging baby boomers. In addition, greater awareness of the need for a healthy lifestyle has played a part, says Plotnick. Furthermore, many companies are hiring OTs to help employees deal with ergonomics in the workplace.
Just as NYIT professors teach their students to be ready to adapt to the future, the School of Health Professions, Behavioral and Life Sciences is continuing to change and grow as the demand for its graduates increases.
Send feedback and story ideas to alumni@nyit.edu.
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