Have you ever had your doctor ask you to visit an audiologist? There are 15,000 audiologists around the country, almost all of them working at the office of a doctor who specializes in ear medicine. If you ever took an elderly relative to be tested for a hearing aid, an in-store audiologist probably helped you make the right choice. There are several who work at various government departments that regulate hearing treatment, and there are audiologists in private practice as well. For a nation as large as this one, there still is plenty of room for growth in careers to do with audiolology. That is especially true if you consider how the typical audiologist salary goes up to nearly $70,000 a year.

That kind of audiologist salary doesn't come easily though. In the past, all you needed was a master's degree in the field. For about a couple of years now though, about two dozen states have begun to require a doctoral degree to grant a license. They call the degree a doctorate of audiology, and it takes a four year degree to gain one. Audiologists absolutely need to have a license to practice in any state. Not only do you need to gain that license once, you need to keep renewing it. Each time you do, they test you afresh to see that you've been keeping up with all that goes on in your field. And being an audiologist who works with hearing aids means a completely separate license to practice, called a Hearing Aid Dispenser license.

And then we come to the most interesting question of all - your typical audiologist salary. While where you work can make a real difference to how much your job as an audiologist pays, the median salary in the country ranges upward of $70,000 or so. With better qualifications, that number could rise. It works out to about $40 an hour, and it's expected to rise further still. Audiology is a profession that's all set to rise in the coming future. With a salary that's keeping up with or exceeding standard inflationary measures, it's a winning bet for anyone interested in a career in medicine. If you have the kind of dedication, the attention to detail, the sensitivity you need to deal with people and children especially, and if you enjoy exercising your skills on precision equipment and in helping people, an audiologist's are shoes that you could fill.