- What Drives You?
A healthcare career is extremely tough, in terms of both training and responsibilities. This is why you need to take a closer look at your reasons for choosing this career. If you’ve been fascinated with the endless romance opportunities you’ve seen in Gray’s Anatomy, you’re probably making the wrong choice for your professional life. Helping others, on the other hand, can be a powerful motivation for you to choose this thorny but rewarding career path. It’s worth mentioning here that not all jobs in the healthcare industry involve directly assisting people in becoming healthier. If, for instance, you have a strong passion for chemistry or biology, you could work in a lab to improve medicines or to develop new treatments. Whatever your choice, the medical industry offers excellent advancement opportunities, so you’ll be able to take your career to the next level, if that’s one of your wishes.
- Where Would You Prefer To Work?
Healthcare professionals have a wealth of choices when it comes to working environments. This choice is tightly connected to your motivation for working in healthcare. If you want to help people, you’ll probably need to work in a hospital or a medical clinic. If you enjoy working with children, you could find a job in a pediatric facility. If you want to help senior citizens, you could seek a job in an assisted living facility. If you don’t want to interact directly with the patients, you can work in a lab or pharmaceutical sales. Before making your choice, you also need to assess your emotional status. Very emotional people, for instance, may not be too happy to work in a hospice or in the ER. Moreover, medical professionals can choose some non-conventional work environments such as schools, cruise ships, and military bases.
- What Would Be Your Role Of Choice?
The type of workplace you prefer will have a direct influence on the ideal role you’ll want to assume. The medical industry offers a wide array of job types: medical jobs (surgeons, general practitioners, doctors), nursing jobs, allied health jobs (technicians, scientists, lab staff), non-clinical jobs (caregivers and health service workers), and administrative jobs (medical office and records). If you’re good with people, you’ll probably want a job as a nurse or medical doctor. If you’re energetic and able to handle difficult situations, you may want to choose a job in the ER. If you’re very well-organized and exhaustive, you’ll find your dream job as a medical billing specialist or pharmacy technician.
- Do You Have What It Takes?
It comes without saying that different medical careers require different sets of skills and abilities. Some of these traits are common to all healthcare job types, though. The ability to work under pressure and to cope with a lot of responsibility are two of these traits. You have to acknowledge that the health and even the life of patients depend on your ability to do your job the right way. In addition, many healthcare jobs require excellent communication skills and good abilities to establish a relationship with others. You’ll be getting into contact with people from all walks of life, so you’ll need to find a common language to ensure you understand each other with ease. Some of these jobs require a certain level of technical and mathematical abilities. Last but not least, you can expect to work long and odd hours, you need to be extremely flexible and resilient.
