An overloaded health system. An ageing population. Complex chronic disease. These are just some of the challenges facing the health sector today. The upshot? Highly skilled health professionals are more in-demand than ever – and the number of career options are expanding faster than the field can keep up.
There’s never been a better time to study health. If you’re already studying a related undergraduate degree, or if you’re thinking about making the switch from a different discipline, a UTS postgraduate degree can help you cement a lifelong career.
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Three health professions you should consider
And how much they pay
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Already have an undergraduate degree?
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Meet our students and alumni
Find out what they studied at UTS and where their careers are headed now
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Big challenges, bold solutions
Global warming, an ageing population, new viral threats
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My name is Zoe and I'm studying a Master of Orthoptics. I got to the end of my Medical Science
degree and had no idea what to do. To be honest I had no idea what an orthoptist was when I first
heard of it and then when I found out about the course I thought it sounded pretty interesting.
And what made me want to do it was you get to interact with patients, you get to do some
management and treatment but you also get to work with doctors as well. And another selling point
at the time was that there's definitely jobs in the area and it's a needed profession it's a growing
area as well. In the word itself ortho is straight and optics is eyes so it started as a profession
to straighten eyes but here in Australia we're also taught an ophthalmic side of it which is
where we work with the ophthalmologists who are the eye doctors.
The Master of Orthoptics at UTS is a two-year course and in the first year and a half you learn all
of your content and then on top of that you also do research subjects
and from second semester in your first year you start going out on placement so you
spend almost as much time doing practical work as you do coursework.
And everything you learn in your classes is directly related to what you learn in practical classes.
And then on top of that you get such a varied amount of experiences through placement.
They try and send you to as many different types of places as they can, so different public hospitals,
private clinics, specialised clinics, so you get a really good understanding about all the different
areas that you can possibly go into. My advice for anyone considering orthoptics is that it's
a very rewarding career. Everyone's going to be behind you and everyone wants you to succeed.
It's definitely worth it and I've loved my two years and I'm very glad I did Orthoptics.
