What is an Immunologist and Immunology?

An immunologist is trained for diagnosing what's wrong going on in the immune system. Immunologist treats the patients with immunological disorders like allergic asthma, allergic reactions, immunodeficiency, autoimmune disease and much more. Immunology is a branch of biology that deals with the study of immune system.

Career Options:

Immunologist can choose to be a scientist, and can do research related to the immunology fields, or can be a doctor, who will treat patients with immunological disorders, or immunologist can combine these two career options and can become a practicing doctor who performs research works in the laboratory.

Job of an Immunologist:

Immunologist performs the following jobs

1. Studying and identifying the abnormalities which are present in the body fluids of patients.

2. Supervising the research laboratories in universities, medical institutes, hospitals or pharmaceutical or biotech companies.

3. Discovering new laboratory procedures for diagnosis of immunological conditions

4. Immunologists also analyze the statistical data of a research

5. Analyzing body fluids like blood or other body tissues and cells to find abnormalities associated with the patient's conditions.

Essential Education and Training required to become an Immunologist:

An immunologist needs to have a basic four year medical degree and then he/she specializes in internal medicine to become an immunologist. It takes additional two to three years.

Certification and Licensing required to become an Immunologist:

In United States, according to the American Board of Allergy and Immunology, necessary certificates and licensing required are:

1. Candidate must be a diploma holder from an approved medical college

2. Candidate should complete three years of additional training in internal medicine.

3. To practice as an immunologist or an allergist candidate must pass the exam conducted by the American Board of Allergy and Immunology.

Potential Salary of an Immunologist or an Allergist:

According to the salary survey conducted in United States of America during 2009 an immunologist can earn around $ 228,000 annually.

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