Is your job as a Dietitian stressful?

The other day I came across to a survey made by careercast.com where “Dietitian” ranked number 6 in the less stressful jobs. Would you agree? The first thing I thought was: It will vary according to where in the world you work and your job setting. Dietitian´s career is too wide. Working as a food manager with more than 50 people in charge in a US hospital is very different from the RD that works on the clinic in Panamá or the RD that works on patient education in Angola or the one that works on the media in Venezuela. After working both in the US and in Argentina, I would say that working in Argentina is much more stressful. The health system in general is less organized, there is much paperwork to do (lack of assistants and no DTRs) and there might be a lack of protocols (and if they exist people not always follow them).

Going back to the report, 11 aspects were taken into account to measure stress of 200 different careers. Those aspects were:

·         Travel (the more travel, the higher the stress)
·         Growth potential (dead-end jobs tend to create more stress)
·         Deadlines
·         Working in the public eye
·         Competitiveness within the organization
·         Physical demands
·         Environmental conditions
·         Own life at risk
·         Hazards encountered
·         Meeting the public
·         Life of another is at risk

The ranking of the less stressful jobs was:
10. Drill press operator
9. Multimedia artist
8. Librarian
7. Medical records technician
6. Dietitian
5. Seamstress or tailor
4. Tenured university professor
3. Jeweler
2. Hair stylist
1. Audiologist

And the top ten more stressful careers was:
10. Taxi driver
9. Police officer
8. Newspaper reporter
7. Senior corporate executive 
6. Public relations executive
5. Event coordinator
4. Airline pilot
3. Firefighter
2. Military general 
1. Enlisted military personnel

The lists are kind of weird and can be criticized. I think that all careers have their own challenges and job stress depends much on where you work. And, definitely Dietitian is a challenging profession and I like that in some way. If we analyze the report´s 11 aspects, we usually have deadlines and work in the public eye. There is also certain competitiveness (e.g, other professionals) and dealing with people health problems, working with them to change habits is not a very relaxed task!  Don´t you think?

Romina

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