Paging Doctor Gray, paging doctor…

Do you hear your name at the end? Did you always want to be a physician?

Becoming a physician isn’t easy. It takes years of study and hard work. It’s a demanding profession with long hours and life-and-death decisions. But there are rewards.

Medicine is about helping people. Physicians provide advice and reassurance, examine symptoms, and consider a range of diagnoses. It requires an inquisitive mind, the ability to acquire and maintain high levels of knowledge and the ability to relate to a wide variety of people.

There are more than 60 different specialties in the field of medicine. The training you go through gives you an opportunity to discover what field appeals to you. Approximately 60 percent of all DOs choose to practice in primary care disciplines of family practice, general internal medicine and pediatrics.

Touro University Nevada offers a doctor of osteopathic (DO) medicine. Osteopathic physicians are trained to work in partnership with their patients and look at the whole person. Osteopathic medical students also learn the art of osteopathic manipulative medicine, a system of hands-on techniques that help alleviate pain, restore motion and influence the body’s structure to help it function more efficiently.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-2011 Edition, employment of physicians and surgeons is projected to grow 22 percent from 2008 to 2018. In addition to job openings from employment growth, numerous openings will result from the need to replace the relatively high number of physicians and surgeons who are expected to retire over the 2008-18 decade.