Healthcare Career Options Available Today
Nowadays, health care careers cover more than physicians, nurses and other professionals who directly deal with patients-careers can also focus on administrative or sales and marketing tasks. In other words, you could work with patients, or behind the scenes as a manager, public health professional and so on.
If you’re planning to work directly with patients, there are several career paths available. Besides the common professional fields such as nursing and medicine, there are plenty of other fields like dietetics, occupational therapy, physical therapy and radiologic technology, to name a few.
Students who want to become nurse practitioners and doctor assistants can select from a whole range of specialties, like cardiology and neonatology. There’s also genetic counseling for those who are interested in genetics. Genetic counselors guide people through genetic problems they may be facing in the family tree.
If you’re a lover of science, but would rather not deal with patients in a direct manner, working in a medical or a research laboratory is a suitable option. And if you’re really into helping people, just not in a way that involves blood and all, you explore a career in public health, health care management or health care communications.
Health care management is one popular choice for people who envision themselves being a future medical clinic or hospital administrator. Generally, courses in both biology and business are needed for health care management careers, but there are now colleges that offer specific undergraduate programs for this as well as for other related career paths.
Preparatory Health Programs
For certain health care careers, you only need a master’s or even a bachelor’s degree, but for others, you will need an M.D., a Ph.D. or any professional degree. If you’re planning a career in a field that needs a professional degree, weigh your options very well before deciding on a bachelor’s degree program to pursue. In some colleges, you can choose from special preparatory program tracks such as pre-veterinary medicine, pre-medicine, etc.
Right from your first day in college, such a preparatory program can get you ready not just for further study, but also to for professional school entrance exams, like the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). Before applying to a professional school, make sure you have researched the realities of professional school. While there are jobs, exceptional performance in the sciences is a must if you want to be competitive. Considering how demanding professional school programs usually are, students have no choice but to be prepared in every way, especially mentally.