Profession

Orioles starting pitcher Justin Duchscherer, who has been on the 15-day disabled list since the end of spring training and who has pitched in just five games since 2008, opened up about his clinical depression for an article in the latest issue of Men's Journal magazine, which hits newsstands tomorrow. Duchscherer was diagnosed with clinical depression in 2009 after he went through a divorce and injured his throwing elbow. The Orioles were aware of Duchscherer's physical and mental health issues when they signed the two-time All Star to a low-risk, $700,000 one-year contract during the offseason.

Editor: As summer approaches, many high school students are getting ready to graduate and head off to colleges across the nation. As a soon to graduate college student, who attended our own Fallston High School, I would like to suggest a major that is little known but highly rewarding: occupational therapy.  Occupational therapy was established as a profession in 1917 and has continued to grow to this day. Occupational therapists work with...

For teachers, the last 10 years have brought mixed results."A Nation at Risk," the much-discussed 1983 report on the status of American education, sought to raise the quality of teaching and the status of teachers. Salaries for teachers, the report said, should be "competitive, market-sensitive and performance-based." School boards should adopt 11-month contracts for teachers and use incentives to attract outstanding students to teaching, particularly in math and science.There's been some progress.

Larry Jenc has been working in the marine technology industry for more than four decades and, until recently, thought he was part of a dying profession. A combination of low pay and a shortage of boats to work on contributed to a significant decline in the number of marine technicians like Jenc. The Minnesota native, who grew up on the water, is trying to do his part in keeping his profession from becoming obsolete. Three years after helping to start a pilot program to teach marine technology to high school students in his home state, Jenk will be working at Fred's Shed at this year's Baltimore Boat Show.

Marking the profession's 99th year, social workers from all over the nation convened in Baltimore yesterday concerned about how new welfare laws and managed care will affect their future.The convention, titled "Take Charge of Change," focuses on how the profession will fare in the 21st century amid economic pressures."Some social workers are losing their jobs because of cutbacks in government funding," said Beth Ledford of the National Association of Social Workers.Ledford said that the conference was an excellent opportunity to network and "interpret the larger picture."

Fearing a life of endless number-crunching under the hum of fluorescent lights, fewer and fewer college students are choosing careers in accounting, leaving some firms in a mad scramble to find qualified applicants.And a state law requiring an extra year of higher education to become a certified public accountant isn't helping the situation.Under a 1995 law, students who apply to take the CPA exam after July 1 must have completed 150 hours, or five years, of college. The extra year was added because the profession has changed so drastically that CPAs must have a broader set of skills.

When the dot-com bubble burst and her high-tech company failed last year, Susan Steele, 60, wondered what to do with the rest of her working years. She decided on teaching and looked forward to the start of this school year. But after four days at Lansdowne High School in southwest Baltimore County, Steele couldn't sleep. Her classes were crowded, her students restless, and the work just never stopped. So she quit. Although her experience is an extreme example, it illustrates the problems with hiring former fighter pilots, business people, computer programmers and others who are changing careers - an increasingly popular way that school systems across Maryland and the nation are addressing critical shortages of teachers.

BERLIN -- The prostitute in knee-high boots makes a few things clear right away to her 14 customers standing around in the cold: The whole thing will last about two hours. It's OK to take pictures. And don't expect any sex. Now, that will be 15 deutsche marks per person, please.The prostitute, Laura Meritt, is peddling information tonight, not flesh, in what must be one of Europe's most unorthodox guided tours. Part bordello history and part lobbying pitch, the tour is as good an illustration as you'll find of Germany's official ambivalence toward the world's oldest profession.

Dennis Jutras has been a standout before. Years ago, when he worked in the fashion accessories industry, he climbed from a job as warehouse worker to an executive overseeing 2,000 people, earning 11 promotions in four years. Now, the Polytechnic Institute history teacher can say he has done just as well in his new profession. Yesterday, Jutras was named Baltimore's Teacher of the Year. He will compete against representatives from Maryland's 23 other school systems for the statewide award this fall.

Editor: As summer approaches, many high school students are getting ready to graduate and head off to colleges across the nation. As a soon to graduate college student, who attended our own Fallston High School, I would like to suggest a major that is little known but highly rewarding: occupational therapy.  Occupational therapy was established as a profession in 1917 and has continued to grow to this day. Occupational therapists work with...

The world of academia - the world of ivory towers, learned scholars, and ivy-covered walls - is a fraud. And I am a living fraud. As an academic, I cannot escape the fact that I work in the fake world. What else can I conclude when people use the term "the real world" to refer to life outside academia? University faculty and support staff hear this phrase so often that we barely pause over it. Worse still, we have thoroughly imbibed it and utter it regularly. Sure (I tell myself)

As a ninth-grader, Michelle Blair of Crofton has plenty of time to figure out what career to pursue. Yet, while taking classes in Anne Arundel County's BioMedical Allied Health magnet program at Glen Burnie High School, she's already considering a possible career in medicine. And though she might not follow in the footsteps of her mother, Diane, who is a nurse, Michelle says, "I am hoping this program will help me narrow [my choices] down. It's given me the experience to see what I like and what I do not like.

In recent weeks, at least one local television station has referred to Barry H. Landau, the New York man arrested with an accomplice and charged with stealing documents from the Maryland Historical Society, as a "presidential historian. " The TV station, WJZ-Channel 13, had it wrong. Mr. Landau is not a "historian"; he is a professional collector of presidential memorabilia, and has befriended several former chief executives in the process. As a professional historian who was trained within the academic field and has taught history at the college level for 20 years, I can sadly say that the terms "historian" and "history" have been, particularly in recent years, distorted, unduly inflated, and diminished.

A broad swath of workers in the Baltimore region — including those landing jobs in the sector doing the most hiring these days — do not earn enough to afford a home or even to rent a two-bedroom apartment on their salaries alone. That's the conclusion of a study released today by the Center for Housing Policy. The Washington-based nonprofit reports each year on whether workers in common occupations that typically require no more than a bachelor's degree can find housing that doesn't take up a huge chunk of their income.

It could be said that Sheila Song's choice of career as a geriatric pharmacist is in herblood. For it is the close relationship the Carney resident has long shared with her grandmother, Cheng Soon Song, now 89, who had a major role in Song's upbringing, and who led Song to see that there is both need and reward in working with the elderly. The Loch Raven High School graduate, Song, 25, recently earned her Doctorate of Pharmacy after completing an intensive four-year program at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in Baltimore.

Orioles starting pitcher Justin Duchscherer, who has been on the 15-day disabled list since the end of spring training and who has pitched in just five games since 2008, opened up about his clinical depression for an article in the latest issue of Men's Journal magazine, which hits newsstands tomorrow. Duchscherer was diagnosed with clinical depression in 2009 after he went through a divorce and injured his throwing elbow. The Orioles were aware of Duchscherer's physical and mental health issues when they signed the two-time All Star to a low-risk, $700,000 one-year contract during the offseason.

On Aug 23, Everett "Jack" Wade, Funeral arrangements were private. In lieu of flowers send donations to Profession Health Care Hospice Foundation.

SenatorPhilip C. JimenoDemocratChairman of the five-member Senate delegation, memberof the Senate since 1985Committee: Judicial Proceedings and Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative ReviewAge: 45Profession: Insurance agentHometown: Brooklyn ParkAnnapolis office: 305 James Building, Annapolis, 21401Phone: 841-3658DelegateJoan CaddenDemocratMember of the House since 1991Committee: Constitutional and Administrative LawAge: 50Profession: Self-employed...

And you thought fancy-pants doctors, lawyers and the like were the only ones who obsessed about their professional status. Pimps care, too. Consider the e-mail The Baltimore Sun's Justin Fenton received after describing a homicide victim as a "wannabe pimp" on the paper's crime blog. One of the dead man's associates objected to the term, but not in the way you might think. "I want to know where you get off calling someone you don't even know a ‘wanna be,' " the e-mail began.

On Aug 23, Everett "Jack" Wade, Funeral arrangements were private. In lieu of flowers send donations to Profession Health Care Hospice Foundation.