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Study in Health
The future of health looks to be in top shape at USC, with a range of challenging degrees on offer and graduate careers in the pipeline.
For USC graduates in nursing, paramedic science, occupational therapy and dietetics, a planned training hospital at Kawana will open up a world of opportunity.
The $2.03 billion Sunshine Coast University Hospital (SCUH) is due to open at Kawana in 2016, creating jobs for 3500 doctors, nurses, allied health and other staff.
A co-located private hospital on the site will also employ almost 1000 staff when it opens at the end of 2013, providing further job opportunities for USC graduates.
The SCUH site will also feature a Skills, Academic and Research Centre. USC is a partner in the development of the research centre, which will offer students access to world-class laboratories, teaching and training facilities and research equipment.
Other organisations working to develop the research centre are Queensland Health, the University of Queensland, the Sunshine Coast Institute of TAFE and Queensland Health’s Clinical Skills Development Services.
USC’s health degrees, which include a Bachelor of Nursing Science, Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science, Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology), Bachelor of Paramedic Science, Bachelor of Occupational Therapy, Bachelor of Biomedical Science and Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics, are among the more popular courses at USC.
With the health care sector performing so strongly, it’s easy to see why.
In the five years to 2015-16, employment in Health Care and Social Assistance in Australia is expected to increase at an average rate of 4.5 per cent per year, more than twice the all industries rate of 2.1 per cent, equating to around 323,300 new jobs nationally. (Source: SkillsInfo)
In 2010, the largest employing occupation in the health care sector in Australia was registered nurses (202,300) and in the two years to 2010, registered nurses experienced the largest employment growth (33,100 or 19.5 per cent). (Source: SkillsInfo)
For health and sports science students, USC offers outstanding facilities, including a new Olympic-standard 10-lane 50m heated pool, indoor sports stadium, Olympic-standard athletics track, gymnasium, sports-assessment laboratory, nutrition and dietetics training kitchen, and paramedic teaching and research facilities.
Health and sport-related research is a major focus of PhD students at USC. Some areas of research in the field include cancer prevention and control, infectious diseases, cardiac rehabilitation, dementia care and mental health, environmental epidemiology, injury prevention, maternal and child health, motion analysis and sports biomechanics, and obesity.
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