51HEALTH PROFESSIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS

Registered nurses assess patients, plan and deliver care, administer medication and treatments, and coordinate with the rest of the clinical team. In Florida the licence is issued by the Florida Board of Nursing, and eligibility runs through a Board-approved nursing programme and the NCLEX-RN examination — not through accumulated coursework.

⚠⚠ One route: the Doctor of Pharmacy, awarded in Florida's public system by UF, FAMU and USF (about 412 a year). ⚠⚠ Admission turns on two or more years of prerequisite science, not a bachelor's degree: UF's minimum is an associate degree, and more than half of Pharm.D. applications nationally come from people without a bachelor's. Median pay is $140,910 nationally and $135,970 in Florida. BLS expects retail demand to be limited as prescriptions move online and by mail.

LPNs give direct nursing care under an RN or physician — medications, wounds, vital signs, assessment — and supervise aides. ⚠ It is the widest-taught credential on this site (48 Florida institutions, 1,322 completions a year), a median of $64,400, and the one field where Florida law publishes each programme's licence-examination pass rate before you enrol. Look it up.

Radiologic technologists produce the medical images physicians diagnose from — positioning patients, setting exposures and keeping the dose as low as the picture allows. ⚠ A median of $80,110 on a two-year degree, the best wage-to-training ratio on this site. ⚠⚠ Florida CERTIFIES the work under Chapter 468, admission is competitive and cohort-based, and the national registry requires an associate degree in any subject alongside an accredited programme.

Respiratory therapists manage breathing — running mechanical ventilators, interpreting arterial blood gases, giving aerosolised drugs, clearing airways, and answering every code in the building. ⚠ A median of $82,280 on a two-year degree — second only to dental hygiene among the two-year routes on this site — with federal growth projected at 9% over 2025–35, much faster than average. ⚠⚠ Florida LICENSES the work, and the licence runs through a national NBRC credential rather than through the degree. ⚠⚠⚠ And the course numbering is looser here than in the comparable clinical programmes — register out of your programme's own sequence, never by number.

Dental hygienists are licensed clinicians who assess and treat the gums, remove calculus and stains, take and read radiographs, apply preventive agents, and teach patients to look after their own teeth. ⚠ A median of $98,100 on a two-year associate degree — the highest of any two-year route on this site. ⚠⚠ Florida licenses the work under Chapter 466 and requires THREE separate examinations on top of the degree. ⚠⚠⚠ Admission is the hard part, not the coursework: 18 public programmes in the whole state, all limited-access.

Medical laboratory scientists produce the results a diagnosis is made from — haematology, clinical chemistry, microbiology, immunology and the blood bank — and catch the result that is wrong before a physician acts on it. ⚠⚠ Florida is one of the few states that LICENSES this work: you may not report a clinical laboratory result here without a licence. ⚠⚠⚠ Read the wage section before you commit: this is a four-year degree paying less than three of the two-year health paths on this site, and that trade-off is the honest centre of this page.

Physical therapist assistants deliver the treatment a physical therapist has planned — guiding exercise, applying manual therapy and modalities, measuring what has changed, and keeping a discouraged patient working through the months that recovery actually takes. ⚠ A median of $68,380 on a two-year associate degree, with federal growth projected at 17% over 2025–35. ⚠⚠ Check which wage figure you are reading: the federal page covers assistants AND aides together, and an aide earns half as much and needs no degree. ⚠⚠⚠ Florida licenses this work under Chapter 486, and there are two examinations.

Paramedics are the highest level of prehospital care — assessing and stabilising at the scene, administering drugs, managing advanced airways, reading ECGs and running a cardiac arrest before the patient reaches a hospital. ⚠ Median $60,600, reached through a certificate rather than a degree, and stacked on top of a short EMT course most people complete first. ⚠⚠ In Florida this is substantially a FIRE SERVICE credential: departments pay for it and pay extra for holding it. ⚠⚠⚠ And the accreditation rule here is the strictest on this site — the wrong programme leaves you unable to certify at all.

Surgical technologists build and defend the sterile field in an operating theatre — setting up instruments and equipment, scrubbing in with the surgical team, passing instruments through the case, and counting every sponge and needle before the patient is closed. ⚠ A median of $64,650, usually reached through a certificate rather than a degree. ⚠⚠⚠ And this is the one health credential on this site that FLORIDA DOES NOT REGULATE — no licence, no board, no state gate — which makes checking your programme's accreditation entirely your job. Several commercial sites say otherwise; they are wrong, and this page shows why.

Dietitians assess nutritional status and design the medical nutrition therapy that treats kidney disease, diabetes, cancer, critical illness and failure to thrive. ⚠ A median of $76,400 with 8% growth. ⚠⚠⚠ And the thing a Florida student must not get wrong: since 1 January 2024 the national credential requires a GRADUATE DEGREE, while the Florida licensing statute still says a bachelor's — three sources disagree about what this career needs, and this page sets out which one binds.

Speech-language pathologists diagnose and treat disorders of speech, language, voice and swallowing — in children who are not talking, in stroke patients who have lost words, in people who cannot safely swallow. ⚠ A median of $97,870 and 17% growth, among the best combinations on this site. ⚠⚠⚠ But the bachelor's is NOT a terminal degree: Florida awards 513 of them a year into 298 master's places, and 89% of the profession holds a master's. This page covers the assistant, the pathologist and the audiologist, because the bachelor's only reaches the first.

Occupational therapy assistants deliver the treatment that gets people back to doing ordinary things — dressing, cooking, writing, working, playing — after injury, stroke, developmental delay or mental illness. ⚠ A median of $72,300 on a two-year degree, growing 21%. ⚠⚠⚠ And the finding worth acting on: it pays MORE and grows FASTER than the physical therapist assistant, and Florida trains a QUARTER as many. Four institutions, 57 graduates a year. This page covers the assistant, the aide and the therapist.

Sonographers produce and interpret the ultrasound images physicians diagnose from — deciding in real time which views answer the clinical question, and recognising the difference between healthy and pathological tissue on a screen nobody else is watching. ⚠ A median of $96,590 on a two-year degree, second only to dental hygiene among the two-year routes on this site. ⚠⚠⚠ And a regulatory fact worth knowing before you enrol: Florida does NOT license sonographers, because the statute is written about radiation rather than about imaging.

Two of the largest short-certificate routes into health care in Florida, paying within $60 a year of each other and taught at the same technical colleges — and the state treats them completely differently. ⚠⚠⚠ Florida writes down in statute exactly what a medical assistant may do, including venipuncture and administering medication, and requires NO licence, certificate or training to do it. It requires a pharmacy technician, working behind a counter, to register with the Board of Pharmacy and complete a board-approved programme. ⚠⚠ And the medical assisting programme has FOUR labelled exit points you can leave on and be hired at — the pharmacy technician programme has none.

The shortest formal route into health care Florida operates. ⚠⚠⚠ Of 772 phlebotomy credentials awarded by 29 Florida public institutions in 2023, EVERY ONE was a certificate of under twelve weeks — about 165 clock hours, most of it at a district technical college. It pays $45,230, essentially the same as a medical assistant or a pharmacy technician on ten times the training. ⚠⚠ And Florida's clinical laboratory licensing statute names phlebotomists in its EXCLUSION, one rung below two occupations the same statute licenses.

⚠⚠⚠ Three different routes wear this name in Florida, they are taught at roughly the same number of institutions, and only ONE of them leads to the field's professional credential. Health information management — 31 institutions, and the associate degree is what makes you RHIT-eligible. Billing and coding — 37 institutions and the largest output, all clock-hour certificates, none of which does. Medical office administration — 36 institutions into an occupation of 850,000 people with no credential ladder at all. ⚠⚠ Choosing wrongly does not waste a term; it forecloses the credential.

Running the non-clinical half of health care — budgets, staffing, quality, compliance, revenue, regulators. $123,860 median, 616,200 employed, 62,100 openings a year, growing much faster than average. ⚠⚠ There is no required major: Census microdata puts HEALTH first at 169,319 people, BUSINESS second at 75,396 and PSYCHOLOGY third at 47,154. ⚠⚠⚠ But Florida statute puts a price on the choice — on the nursing home side, a health administration major halves the required training programme from 2,000 hours to 1,000.

⚠⚠⚠ The job most students picture when they say public health is the smallest one in the federal data. Epidemiologists: 12,300 employed in the whole country, about 800 openings a year, and entry is effectively 100% graduate. The jobs are in health education (71,800, $64,070) and community health work (65,100, $51,850, high-school entry). ⚠⚠ Florida's own numbers say the same thing from the other side — 579 master's degrees against 560 bachelor's, at just 8 institutions, every one a university.

Diagnosing, managing and prescribing across essentially every specialty — $135,880 median, 162,700 employed, 12,000 openings a year, growing much faster than average. ⚠⚠⚠ The barrier is not the transcript. PAEA puts the median matriculant at about 3,200 hours of direct patient contact — one to three years of clinical work BEFORE the programme starts — and Florida's six public programmes award 225 master's degrees a year between them. ⚠⚠ So the real question this page answers is: which job do you take first?

⚠⚠⚠ Florida grants nurse practitioners autonomous practice — and almost every account of it omits the limit that matters. Autonomous registration covers PRIMARY CARE ONLY. It does not let you practise your specialty without a physician protocol, and only certified midwives are excepted. 11,201 APRNs were registered for autonomous practice as of the 2024 legislative analysis. ⚠⚠ The occupation itself is nearly twice the size of the physician assistant profession — 320,400 employed, 29,500 openings a year, $132,300 median.

⚠⚠⚠ There is no pre-medical major, and AAMC's own numbers say the medical-sounding one is the worst choice. Of 54,699 applicants in 2025-26, 58.6% majored in biological sciences and were admitted at 42.1% against an overall 42.9% — while mathematics and statistics reached 57.3%, humanities 52.0% and physical sciences 51.3%. ⚠⚠ Specialized health sciences came LAST at 40.3%. Six Florida public medical schools award 757 degrees a year.

⚠⚠⚠ A master's-entry, state-licensed clinical profession paying $62,520 — less than a licensed practical nurse earns on a certificate ($64,400), and less than every associate-degree clinical route on this site except paramedic. ⚠⚠ The profession moved to master's entry in 2022: CAATE states that after the fall 2022 term, baccalaureate degree programmes will no longer enrol students. ⚠ Florida's statute has not caught up and still reads as though a bachelor's is enough.

⚠⚠⚠ Begin with the arithmetic. Florida awards about 5,000 biology bachelor's a year; the biological-scientist occupations hire roughly 13,800 people a year NATIONALLY, and two-thirds of those openings are technician roles at a $57,510 median. ⚠⚠ That is not an argument against the degree — it is an argument for knowing what it is FOR. In practice a Florida biology bachelor's is a preparation for professional school, a research doctorate, teaching or a laboratory career that starts at technician level, and the state's own enrolment data already shows it.

⚠⚠⚠ The entry-level education for this occupation is a HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA, and it has about 68,000 openings a year — one of the largest figures on this site. What the job requires is a CERTIFICATION, not a degree. ⚠⚠ So a Florida student in a kinesiology degree needs an answer to a direct question: what is the degree for? There are three good ones — clinical exercise physiology ($59,460, +13%), graduate school in a health profession, or management — and this page is organised around them.

Firefighters suppress fires, extricate people from vehicles and structures, handle hazardous materials — and spend most of their calls delivering emergency medical care. ⚠ A Florida median of $58,550, reached through an academy rather than a degree. ⚠⚠⚠ And the thing that actually determines what you earn: in Florida this is a DUAL credential. Departments hire Firefighter/EMTs and Firefighter/Paramedics, several pay for the paramedic programme, and one pays a $10,000 bonus for arriving with both. Plan the EMS half from the start.