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51.09Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions

Career paths in this area

Radiologic Technologist SOC 29-2034
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 Therapist SOC 29-1126
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.
Paramedic SOC 29-2043
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 Technologist SOC 29-2055
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.
Diagnostic Medical Sonographer SOC 29-2032
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.
Physician Assistant SOC 29-1071
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?
Athletic Trainer SOC 29-9091
⚠⚠⚠ 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.
Fitness Professional and Exercise Physiologist SOC 39-9031
⚠⚠⚠ 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.
⚠⚠ Allied Health Diagnostic and Treatment Professions — named because athletic training lives here and is the credentialled neighbour: master's-level entry, programmatically accredited and LICENSED in Florida. ⚠ An undergraduate PET or APK course does not accumulate toward it, so work backwards from a target programme's prerequisite list.
Firefighter SOC 33-2011
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.
⚠⚠ Allied health, and specifically emergency medical services — not an adjacent field but effectively half of this job. Most Florida career departments hire dual-certified Firefighter/EMTs or Firefighter/Paramedics, and 39 Florida public institutions teach EMS.

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