Finding a balance between spending time and money on your education and making those expenses pay you back can be a challenge. One one hand, formal higher education does not necessarily guarantee you a job. On the other hand, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a person with a high school diploma earns an average of $5,000-$7,000 less per year than someone with even the lower levels of certification and technical training.
Technical Training and Certifications
This level of job-preparedness is relatively fast and inexpensive to undertake. The careers that will be available to you will be mostly supporting roles, such as aides and assistants. They range from direct patient care to imaging and diagnostics to health informatics. Below is a partial list of opportunities with a brief job description and education requirements.
Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) – Provide direct patient care under supervision. Job duties include serving meals, making beds, and helping patients to eat, wash, dress and get to examination rooms. Checking some vitals including temperature and blood pressure. This position often involves more personal contact with patients than other positions. Most employers require certification.
Dental Assistant – Provide direct patient care under supervision. Job duties include sterilizing equipment, assisting during procedures, instructing patients in healthy practices. Record-keeping is also typical. Certification is required.
EKG Technician – Imaging and diagnostics. Perform Holter monitor and stress tests. This involves attaching patients to a monitor to test heart health and walking them through the procedure. Certification is ordinarily voluntary.
Medical Administrative Assistant – Health Informatics. Job duties include scheduling appointments, billing and record-keeping. Certifications are voluntary.
Medical Assistant – Health informatics. This job varies in its duties according to state law, but it usually involves a combination of appointment-setting, record-keeping, pharmacology, taking vitals, first aid, drawing blood, etc. Certifications are available and preferred, but not required.
Registered Nurse (RN) – Direct patient care. The duties of an RN vary quite a bit according to the specialty. RNs are found in critical care and emergency units, management, surgeries, home health care, and more. Certification is required.
Associates Degrees
An associates degree takes about two years to complete if you take a full course-load each semester, and raises your expected income by about $9,000 per year compared to a high school diploma. Here are some of the opportunities available with an associates degree.
Biomedical Equipment Technician – Health care facility support. In this career you can either specialize or train on a variety of equipment. Job duties including repairing, maintaining and adjusting medical equipment, such as defibrillators and x-ray machines. Certification is required.
Dental Hygienist – Direct patient care. Duties, depending on the laws of the state in which you reside, include taking x-rays, cleaning and polishing teeth, removing sutures and administering anesthetics. A license is required.
Histotechnologist – Imaging and diagnostics. Prepare tissue samples to be microscopically examined in order to aid a pathologist with diagnosis and research. Certification is voluntary.
Nuclear Medicine Technologist – Imaging and diagnostics. Use radioactive substances to aid in the diagnosis of patients and in tumor detection. Certification is available, but not required.
Radiology Technician – Imaging and diagnostics. Equipment operation and maintenance, preparing patients for x-rays, keeping patient records. Certification is voluntary, but is required by some employers.
Surgical Technologist – Direct patient care. Responsible for operating room set-up, preparing the patient for surgery and transporting the patient to the operating room. Also assists the surgeon during the operation. Certification is highly recommended and licensure is required in some states.
Bachelor’s Degrees
As with careers in other levels of education, further licensing or certification may be required in addition to the degree. It is fairly common for those with a bachelor’s degree to work in the field for a while, gain some experience, and then continue on to a graduate program after finding a career path. It is very important at this level to investigate accreditation of the institution you plan to attend. There are different bodies that offer accreditation and they are viewed with different levels of respect. Below are some of the opportunities you may seek after acquiring a bachelor’s degree.
Biostatician – Research and development. Use statistical analysis to generate meaningful information from all of the data flowing through medical databases. This might include registering data from clinical trials or carrying out a risk/benefit analysis for surgical procedures. Additional certification is not required.
Forensic Science Technician – Research and development. Collect and/or analyze evidence and data relevant to criminal investigations, such as fingerprints, genetic material and ballistics. This also often involves testifying in court as an expert witness. There are additional certifications available, but they are usually not required.
Hospital Administrator – Health informatics and business. Responsible for planning and oversight of hospitals, clinics, medical centers, hospices and drug-abuse treatment centers, or for certain departments within these facilities. Additional certifications are available, both technical and professional.
Legal Nurse Consultant – Health informatics and business. Provide consultation in legal matters, such as wrongful death, malpractice and personal injury lawsuits. This requires a special blend of medical and legal knowledge. Certifications are available.
Occupational Therapist – Direct patient care. Train people in tasks related to everyday life which will help to improve their overall well-being. This includes working with employers and employees, the elderly, and people with developmental disabilities. A certification exam is required in a addition to a bachelor’s (or higher) degree.
Social Worker – Direct patient care. There are several different opportunities within this career path, including working with the elderly, educational institutions, low-income families and at-risk youth. However, the goal with all of them remains the same: to help them improve their quality of life. Certification and licensing requirements vary according to state law.
Master’s Degrees
A master’s degree will improve the competitiveness of both your resume and the amount of pay you are likely to receive. Getting a master’s usually requires you to choose a specialty. For those in the Health Sciences, the master’s degrees which typically result in the highest-paying jobs are in engineering, business, computer science and nursing. Here are a few examples of health science careers which require a doctorate.
Allied Health Manager – Health informatics and business. Manages the business side of the health care system. This may mean running an entire hospital, a special department within a hospital, or overseeing a clinic, physicians office or other medical facility. Certification is available and licensure is required to manage a nursing care facility, but is not needed in other circumstances.
Physician Assistant – Direct patient care. Assistants usually work under the supervision of a physician, providing general care, ordering lab tests, diagnosing and treating illnesses, etc. Sometimes, especially in rural or poorly-funded areas, the assistant may act as the primary care provider. Licensure is required and re-certification is necessary every 6 years by law in every state.
Registered Nurse – Direct patient care. This is one of the higher paying positions in health care. There are RN positions available in emergency units, schools, clinics, home health care, surgeries, orthopedics and many more. Certification is required.
Vocational Rehab Counselor – Direct patient care. Provide assessment, diagnosis, treatment, career counseling, advocacy and general case management for those who are disabled, or recovering from an injury or disease. Help these people find a job, improve performance at a current job, or improve their overall quality of life. Certification is required and re-certification must take place every 5 years.
Doctoral Degrees and Residency
Those with a PhD most often go into research and development, or seek a tenure-track position at a university. Specialties vary, and include immunology, pharmacology, neuroscience, biology, genetics, oncology, and more. Examples of careers available to PhD holders include:
Geneticist – Research and development. Performing research on human genes and how they interact with health and diseases. Professional and technical certificates may be required in addition to a doctoral degree.
Toxicologist – Research and development. Monitor and evaluate toxic materials and how they interact with the human body, assess the risks of new drugs, laboratory and field experimentation. Certification and licensing requirements vary according to state.
Psychologist – Direct patient care or research and development. Psychologists study how the mind works, and can either work as a counselor to patients in a clinical setting, or go into research or experimental design. Licensure is required in all states and re-certification required every 6 years.