Becoming a toxicologist is one of the premiere fields for many individuals seeking out a career that has both heavy challenges and great rewards in helping the world around them. It’s also a career with a great deal of job satisfaction as one of its key traits — toxicologists help individuals and environments in myriad ways, with work that is often central to emergency or disaster relief.
With toxicology’s high starting pay and median income, coupled with strong job growth, the many reasons why students in the field are so dedicated to their work is plain to see, and the benefits of work in the field have many potential aspirants to the career wondering how they can get a leg up in this highly interesting area of expertise.
Helping Others and Their Environment
Since toxicologists study and understand the effects of chemicals and medications on biological organisms — such as human beings, wildlife or agricultural, waterway and forest regions — the possibility of helping others is high, as toxicologists play a central role in establishing safety concerns. By studying the effects of poisoning on a population, for example, a toxicologist can do much good by analyzing causes and effects of emergency or disaster situations. If you’ve ever read books or seen films such as A Civil Action — wherein a community’s health is plagued by industrial chemical dumps — it’s easy to see how toxicologists play a major role in protecting communities.
And toxicologists are certainly highly valued by both society and employers, both in the forensic and environmental science fields: A study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS.gov) shows that medical scientists — one umbrella under which toxicologists fall — earned a median income of above $76,000 in 2011.
Concentrating Your Studies
Since toxicology is strongly related to biology and chemistry, degrees in the hard sciences can certainly be of benefit to a person seeking out a career in the field. Bachelors degrees — and advanced study — are also available for qualifications. And one way of establishing a career that can help serve populations or ecological environments in emergency situations is to gear one’s study toward toxicology as it relates to ecology and environment.
Since many disasters requiring study by toxicologists occur in natural surroundings, a good background in the effects of chemicals and poisons on such areas will give a student the knowledge they need to treat these delicate and often complicated cases. The Society of Toxicology, for example, runs a disaster response website to address the needs of persons and environments affected by chemical spills, accidents, or other events. Volunteering or interning with such organizations — or with national ecological protection organizations such as the Environmental Protection Agency — is a great way to find real-world experience and applicability to supplement a potential toxicologist’s education.
So for these reasons, finding a job and cultivating a career in toxicology doesn’t have to be a stressful process — in fact the means of becoming a toxicologist are much like the job itself: Full of challenges, rewards, and ultimately ups-and-downs. But with a bit of research and effort, many students are finding that toxicology is the right career at the right time in history.