The role of a health professional is a choice of career that worthwhile and fulfilling role to take. There are many different aspects of health care, from nursing to doctors, but the role of occupational health is a career choice where you are away from the typical environments of doctor’s surgeries or hospital waiting rooms. Occupational health is a procedure that helps many employees get back to work. If you are off work for a period of time because of an injury, or ill health, or even emotional issues, your occupational health specialist can give you help on returning to work.
Occupational health is a type of medicine that focuses specifically on the mental well-being or physical well-being of employees in a workplace. The goal of occupational health is to prevent illnesses or injury specifically relating to workplace issues. This can be done by encouraging safer working practices, finding ways to work better by studying how an employee works (also known as ergonomics), assessing the health of the employees, and to support the managing of absence in the workplace due to sickness. Other duties can also include conducting health assessments prior to the commencement of employment, promoting health and education, providing counseling to employees and implementing policies that adhere to health and safety standards and making adjustments for employees to work better.
It is provided in a different manner than a health professional would towards the public. The health professional can be a part-time doctor or a nurse that has had occupational health training. There are also specialists that can help with occupational health, such as psychologists, hygienists, and physiotherapists. This is provided at an employee’s place of work normally, but smaller organizations cannot afford this service. The working practices of FIFO (fly in, fly out) workers are especially susceptible to occupational health problems, and occupational health professionals are needed in all aspects of the FIFO way of life, whether to provide help to FIFO families or to help employees cope with the stresses of working away for extended periods of time.
The role of an occupational health professional is a varied one. Depending on what sort of field you work in you will have to deal with a diverse and complex set of problems that the workforce may suffer from. The FIFO lifestyle causes a lot of stress-related issues and relationship problems with families due to extended periods of time away from home. As an occupational health professional, your job is to establish how the employee can address their problem, either through approaches like counseling, or by referring them to a specialized health professional. That way, you are helping the employee to address their problem, and to make the correct approaches to going back to work in a safe and healthy manner. This involves having a personality that is reliable and trusting, and making sure that you have the necessary communication skills and empathy required to carry off the role with effectiveness.
It is a different health professional role to the standard ones, but you are able to work closer with people over a long period of time, ensuring you can do a thorough job of getting people back to optimum health.
Milo Senalle
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