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Individuals Working As Patient Advocate

By Francis Riggs


Patient advocacy is a specialization that deals with activism for the patients, caregivers and survivors. A person who speaks for the patient may act individually or as a member of an organization. They may or not be concerned with a specific class of disorders. Both the individuals and the organizations provide similar services to individual patients. Some of those doing the roles of a patient advocate work for hospitals.

This is a new career in Sydney, AU and it is evolving faster. Everyone gets to know that patients need to be listened to and their rights taken care of. A number of those individuals working in hospitals have formed groups whose focus is to help patients. Because this career has come up, most health care individuals call themselves patient advocates after working in hospitals for long periods. Some of the universities are becoming aware of this confusion and have begun offering programs on this topic.

The advantage with this task is that there are various jobs to work on. Not all of these professionals work in hospitals. Many of them find jobs in nonprofit organizations, insurance companies and in government agencies. If you have worked as a professional in hospitals, you can make use of these skills.

The people working in this field are specialists in different areas. What they have specialized in does not matter. What matters actually is their contribution in making sure that the rights of patients have been taken care of

Requirements for one to work as an advocate depend on where he is working. Some of requirements are similar for all these individuals. They will not obviously apply in all the situations and variations are expected from area to area. A job seeker should inquire of the specific requirements needed by the organization.

Because these people work in a variety of places and have various responsibilities they tend to influence individuals differently. The area that you are specialized in will be a guide of how you are expected to assist. Some of them will work in clinics, nursing homes and the community clinics. Others choose to work as activists in insurance companies and other nonprofit organizations. Some government agencies also give jobs to these people.

You will not be asked to drop your current job when you opt to also work as a spokesperson. Because hospitals will never have fewer patients, they will ever require help of an activist. This role is new and very few colleges and learning institutions offer certificates and degree programs in this field. These individuals will mostly give themselves the titles when they start working for the patients.

If you are that person with interest in advocating for the rights of patients, you will not be expected to go back to college and learn. You will only be required to choose your area of specialty and then gain experiences as you work there. As it has been said, most of these professionals partly work as healthcare professionals with a wide range of experiences in the medical fields. They volunteer when they are free from their expected chores.




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