Academia is also trying to make up for past errors, Montague adds. Academic hospitals trimmed their staffs too aggressively in the early '90s, creating organizational problems and patient dissatisfaction, he explains. While hospitals still employ the bulk of respiratory care managers, some have also found management work in alternate care sites. Whether RC managers can expect future growth in alternate care is up for debate. For instance, Frank Rosamilia, who works for the Philadelphia branch of Health Care Recruiters International, maintains that the exodus of jobs from acute care to post-acute care settings will continue, as the need for critical care personnel will decrease over the next decade in all but academic hospitals.
Neonatology appears to pay well.
California, however, lived up to its name as the Golden State. Cost of living partially accounts for this discrepancy, says Rosamilia, but it's mainly because larger metropolitan hospitals are better financed. However, Brace adds that salary levels depend on how desperate a given facility, rural or otherwise, is to recruit. And RC holds true to that gender gap in salaries so persistent throughout industry. Health care management remains a male-dominated field, Brace observes.