When I’m not writing, I work in a sleep lab as a sleep tech.

Well, officially, I work in a Sleep Disorders Center as a Polysomnographic Technologist, and basically, that means I help people sleep better. A part of my job involves significant time, one-on-one with patients, as the setup for a night of monitoring someone’s sleep is rather extensive and takes between 45 and 60 minutes. Most of the time, it’s quiet, and the setup goes by with perfunctory explanations of what I’m doing as the only conversation. Sometimes, though, the patients will engage with me, and the ensuing conversations range from cringeworthy to hilarious to deeply insightful.

A patient I recently worked with—a man who did talent acquisition for a company whose name I never learned—asked me some questions about the field: what kind of training I received, whether or not I went to school for this, and what my career path would be for this field. I answered honestly: I have an unfinished Journalism degree from a million years ago. I was taught to do this hands-on, in a lab, under the tutelage and supervision of other techs and doctors. The technical aspects were taught to me, and I sought the knowledge of the scientific aspects.

When I started in Sleep Medicine, there was no degree program for it. You learned to do the job, sought out the science, and either you took and passed the registration exam, or you didn’t. If you passed it, congratulations, you now have letters after your name and a solid career. I actually think that this is the best way to learn this type of job; you learn by doing. This isn’t to disparage the people who went to school for it—far be it from me to heap judgment on someone who felt strongly enough about doing this, or anything, for a living to complete a degree program in it. But the textbooks and classrooms can only give you but so much preparation before you’re in the real world and the rubber meets the road.

As far as my career path in this field, there’s only so much you can do on the technical side. The natural progression, if you’re interested in it, leads to administration and education. Not necessarily my cup of tea, and I’m happy doing what I’m doing for now. Plus, advancement requires more education, and that incurs more debt, and that defers the enjoyment of the fruits of your labor. Nationally, more and more states have adopted licensure requirements that necessitate further education, regardless of your registration status or years of experience.

The man then asked me I felt the licensure requirements created an artificial constriction on talent acquisition, and I responded with a resounding yes. In my home state of New York, there are 536 licensed and registered Polysomnographic Technologists. Licensure requires you to take an Associate’s Degree program which, to my knowledge, is only offered at one school in Brooklyn and two others statewide. To receive the degree, you have to not only pass the classes, but you have to put in the requisite number of clinical hours (168 on Kingsborough Community College’s curriculum), all before you can sit for the registry exam, and begin seeing patients on your own. On a personal note, there’s no grandfather clause, so me and my 10 years registered, 13 years of working, would have to sit for the exam before I could work in New York.

He shook his head and told me it was a good thing I didn’t live there anymore, and I chuckled with him. He asked me what I wanted to do with my life since I had no desire to follow the ladder this field has to offer. “That’s easy,” I said. “I want to be a writer.”

#2018 #personal #employment #writing #sleepmedicine #author #dreams #goals #patientconversation