If you’ve chosen healthcare as your future, you are entering a vast and well-established field that is essential, quite literally, to the lifeblood of thousands of Americans and the world at large.
Breakthroughs in healthcare lead to the eradication of viruses, diseases, and serious terminal illnesses like cancer. Choosing a career in healthcare is not only a compassionate option but also a vital one.
As an added bonus, healthcare jobs are growing at an uptick, especially since the pandemic raised such a high demand for them. Many of the medical field jobs we mention in this article are expected to continuously rise for the next decade – now is the time to chart a path to success.
1. Choose a healthcare path that works within your interests
Keeping in mind a singular path is the way to go, whether it’s emergency medicine, family medicine, dermatology, anesthesiology, phlebotomy, medical genetics, diagnostic radiology, or neurology.
But are you prepared to endure the challenges of the particular field you’re aiming for?
If you choose a career in patient care, helping to treat the sick one-on-one, and having face-time with faculty and patients alike, are among the high points.
However, if you have hemophobia (fear of blood) or don’t like the idea of having to clean up after patients in between seeing people, then traditional patient care in a large hospital or medical facility might not be for you.
It’s best to keep in mind what your strengths and weaknesses are in choosing your medical field path.
2. Make sure your degree qualifies you for the right job
For any healthcare job, schooling is the most important first step of your training. Without a career-specific degree, you won’t be able to get some of the high-paying jobs out there.
For example, you can get a nursing degree or a degree in pathology, psychiatry, or surgery. You can also get a basic degree in medical science that can open doors for a few jobs, such as community health worker, health educator, paramedic or EMT, clinical research coordinator, or medical claims specialist.
The least amount of time you could expect in college to become a doctor is 4 years of medical school and at least one or two years in a residency position. But this is the minimum. Overall, you should expect between 5 to 15 years for most positions in the medical field.
At Berkeley College, you can get a day program certificate which will train you both in medical theory and real-world applications post-graduation.
The college currently offers two programs in the field, associate and certificate. The certificate can be completed in 30 weeks on a full-time basis, or a more flexible part-time program can be completed in 45 weeks.
The associate program takes 2 years to complete and includes courses in clinical and clerical functions as well as medical office administration. You will learn many things including venipuncture, how to take vital signs, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, as well as core training in EKG.
Even if you can’t get into Berkeley, remember there are many online options for medical assistant programs in New Jersey.
3. Follow up training with work experience
You’ll need plenty of experience to become known in your chosen field. If your college or training program(s) offer internships, then take those opportunities as something to put down on your resume.
Once you graduate, you can start looking for your first job and start gaining “real” on-the-clock experience you can take with you from job to job and eventually grow your career. Job shadowing is also an excellent option to further your career and pad your resume for future jobs at other hospitals.
Whatever your first job is, whether it be an internship, a research assistance program, a job shadow, or a full-time job at a residency, it will follow you for the rest of your career, so make sure you bring your all.
While you do have to pass NCLEX to work as a nurse, in some cases an unlicensed graduate who finishes an accredited basic nursing education program, could temporarily practice nursing tasks under supervision if the NCLEX is on their path. Related work experience is always a plus, even if you find it before schooling finishes.
4. Network, network, network!
In any career, networking is important, (as the AAMC states) whether you’re working in the medical field, business administration, or political sciences.
You will always meet new people that may know more than you and can steer you in the right direction and broaden your horizons if you let them. Making a good impression of yourself in school and your first jobs in your chosen field will take you a long way, and recommendations to other facilities will come rolling in.
Find local job fairs and career services at your college to find more like-minded individuals who want to level up in the same way you do, and you are guaranteed to succeed. You can also reach out to people whose work you admire and ask them to take you under their wing.
5. Stay informed as to new advances in healthcare and medical research
Just because you finish an accredited course doesn’t mean you will always be top of the class.
With today’s fast-paced advances in medical technology, and the changing state of epidemiology and virology, you never know what tomorrow will look like in medicine.
Will we progress forward and see new ways of handling major illnesses, or will we detract and have to save up resources for the next big pandemic?
It’s a scary thought for most “normies” and regular healthcare patients, but as a doctor or nurse, you must find yourself in a state of constant flux and make sure that you stay open to new ways of practicing medicine, reading reports, and new procedures to be practiced and eventually acted upon.
After all, you never know when you’ll have to be the person to adopt these practices in your daily work life! A previous article on our site discussed ways to improve your career prospects in any field, so check that out for some reminders from working professionals.
Healthcare Needs You
Conclusively, the healthcare industry is a beneficial and for the most part, a benevolent system to be a part of where you will be helping people on a day-to-day basis.
If you’ve chosen it as your selected career path, you must be prepared for long hours and occasionally ungrateful or uneasy patients, but the end result will always be worth it for all of the lives you will save.
Naturally, these jobs pay well because hospitals want to keep their most valuable workers healthy, happy, and ready to work. Experienced nurses can expect salaries between $75,000 and as high as $120,000 for specific fields, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Why not challenge yourself to make a difference in the world, with a stable future in practicing medicine?