Opportunity Knocks

The majority of respondents (82.4%) felt their workload was acceptable, and, in general, the scores for how satisfied people were with their compensation relative to their education and experience were more positive than negative. As one respondent wrote, “I think techs get paid well considering that it is not necessary to get any formal education and it is paid training.”

Many people reported that what they found particularly rewarding was how immediately they could make patients feel better. “I’ve seen grown men cry because they were able to sleep so much better after CPAP therapy. … I love my job!” one respondent wrote.

For some, night shifts and 12-hour shifts that allowed flexibility for personal time were ideal. “For the tech with delayed sleep phase circadian rhythm, aka ‘night owl,’ this job is absolutely perfect,” one respondent wrote. For others, this was one of the negatives of the profession, and some mentioned that working nights could be lonely.

CONCLUSIONS

One of the challenges with a voluntary self-report online survey is getting a true representative sample. In some categories, we got only a limited response. In addition, people who take time to fill out surveys about their profession for free may have various motivations that set them apart. For example, some may be motivated because they are unhappy with their jobs and want to complain, while others may be motivated because they love their career and want to add to knowledge about the field. We saw this in our survey’s comment areas where some people raved—”great job,” “very satisfying,” “I love it,” “it is a noble profession,” and “sleep medicine is my passion”—while others vented—”pay increases at our facility never offset increases in insurance or cost of living,” “PhDs in sleep do not get the benefits nor recognition for their work that MDs receive,” and “my position is not clearly defined or manageable.”

Therefore, our data should be viewed in the context of other salary surveys, such as the one available for purchase from the American Association of Sleep Technologists (AAST) Web site at www.aastweb.org. However, as a free qualified snapshot of a dynamic growing field, we hope our survey is useful to all those moving sleep medicine into the future.

Lena Kauffman is a contributing writer to Sleep Review. She can be reached at . The magazine thanks all the readers who took the time to fill out its survey.