It’s the fastest growing sector in Westchester and Fairfield counties. But that doesn’t mean health care is free of challenges.
The United States is seeing a shortage of nurses and primary-care physicians that is particularly acute in rural areas, said Brian A. Goldstein, Ph.D., dean of the College of Health Professions at Pace University in Pleasantville, which recently hosted, along with the Westchester County Association (WCA), the second “World of Health Care” forum on job opportunities in that industry.
The lack of certain key players in health care is attributable in part to the limited number of spaces for training, Goldstein added. But there are other factors at play post-pandemic, including aging medical and patient populations that create low supply and high demand; increasing, and increasingly complex, insurance costs; stress and burnout; and the politicization of everything from maternal health to vaccines.
And yet, there remains an interest among young people in seeing how they can contribute to the health-care sector, as demonstrated by events like “World of Health Care” and college offerings. On Friday, Sept. 18, the event drew some 70 college students, faculty members and health-care professionals and recruiters from Westchester and Rockland counties to the campus of Pace, whose College of Health Professions features undergraduate programs in nursing and health sciences, with a minor in public health, as well as postgraduate degrees in subjects ranging from nursing to occupational therapy, nutrition and speech pathology. (The college educates 1,800 of the university’s 12,000 students.)
Part of what makes health care an attractive field, along with its viability, is its versatility, affording workers vertical as well as lateral opportunities. Goldstein, a trained speech pathologist with expertise in bilingual language development and disorders, is emblematic of that career fluidity, having made the transition to academic dean.
Health-care career pathways was just one of the panels at the event, said Jason Chapin, director of workforce development at the WCA, whose Health Care Talent Subcommittee inaugurated “World of Health Care” last year at Mercy University in Dobbs Ferry. The other panels focused on essential skills and trends, the biggest of which is AI.
It would be hard to overestimate the amount of anxiety AI has generated at the moment, from the much-despised data centers to the fear of rogue players, like those OpenAI agents that infiltrated the platform Hugging Face in July, to a sense that few in corporate and government leadership have the willingness or capability to impose guardrails.
“AI can be a tool,” said Chapin, who has more than 20 years of workforce development experience working for the City University of New York (CUNY) and the State University of New York (SUNY) systems, The WorkPlace and WCA on federal, state and foundation grant projects that have benefited more than 25,000 job seekers, including a nearly $10 million federal grant that trained 450 individuals to fill hundreds of health-care positions in the Hudson Valley. “But with AI you’re dealing with people and different aspects, including the ethical and the moral.”
Already, AI is at work in the health-care field, compiling patient notes, Chapin said; and, Goldstein added, offering a more in-depth look in mammography and other radiology and even predicting, at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, how and when patients might develop bed sores.
But, Chapin said, panelists cautioned event attendees about AI’s limits. While it might be fine for the first draft of a résumé and cover letter, it shouldn’t be relied on for the final product. For that you need the kind of communication and interpersonal skills that Goldstein said Pace’s partners are looking for in new hires. And that requires an education beyond STEM that incorporates the arts and the humanities.
However, with shifting demographics putting pressure on first-generation students and academic institutions for a practical education that will lead to a good paycheck, some colleges and universities are winnowing their arts and humanities programs, which are considered potentially less profitable.
Not Pace, however. Indeed, the school is doubling down, Goldstein said, looking to team health-care students and the English department to develop their critical thinking and interpersonal skills, which are already being sharpened through live training and patient simulations using SimConverse software.
Goldstein, who studied linguistics at a liberal arts institution, Brandeis University, before earning advanced degrees in speech pathology at Temple University, sees this as an “and” rather than an “or” solution: “It’s an emphasis on a combination of the humanities and the sciences that creates the skills employers are looking for.”
The irony is that higher education remains by and large a ticket to greater wealth, although that picture is nuanced. According to Georgetown University’s Center for Workforce Development: “The lifetime earnings of a full-time full-year worker with a high school diploma are $1.6 million, while workers with an associate’s degree earn $2 million. However, at least one quarter of high school graduates earn more than an associate’s degree holder. Bachelor’s degree holders earn a median of $2.8 million during their career, 75% more than if they had only a high school diploma. Master’s degree holders earn a median of $3.2 million over their lifetimes, while doctoral degree holders earn $4 million and professional degree holders earn $4.7 million. However, one quarter of workers with a bachelor’s degree earn more than half of workers with a master’s or a doctoral degree.”
Still, Chapin said, “The broader your education, the more you are able to do with it.”