Healthcare Careers That Will Keep You Out Of The Hospital
You might think that if you are studying medicine, you are going to end up working in a hospital. For many people, this isn’t a particularly pleasant idea. There are a lot of people that would love to work in medicine but hate hospitals. And why wouldn’t you? Hospitals are naturally associated, with fear, pain and yes death. While it’s true a lot of lives are saved in these buildings, it’s hard to shake the subconscious feeling to stay as far away from these places as possible.
But that does leave the question of whether you can still work in medicine while avoiding those big white buildings. Healthcare is a massive, hugely varied industry, so there are plenty of different positions available for those eager enough to seek them out. Not all involve working in a hospital, as we’re about to discover. On this post, we’re going to look at some of the medical careers that exist outside the hospital, who might enjoy them, what skills are needed and what a typical working day could be like.
Doctors Without Borders
This is a charity organization that sends doctors into countries and areas where their skill and brilliance is needed to help save lives. However, despite the name, nurses are also recruited for these projects as well. The aim is to get medically trained staff to locations where people are in desperate need and receiving very little help. A number of countries in Africa are a primary focus of Doctors Without Borders. Typically, doctors in this organization are either headhunted or join voluntarily, often after working several years in a hospital. However, it is possible to jump right into working abroad.
Instead of heading into a permanent position in a hospital you can board a plane and help people wherever you are needed in the world. It’s difficult to describe a typical day working with this organization because experiences can be quite different. Some days you might just be giving out medicine or vaccinations to people in need. Other days you could be performing emergency treatment on someone in their home. You will be provided accommodation and food while working here, but you shouldn’t expect a luxury lifestyle. Conditions for doctors working in these countries can often be very rough with few home comforts.
Doctors Without Borders can also be a dangerous organisation to work with as the staff are often sent to war-torn countries where there is active terrorism. It can certainly be rewarding and even exhilarating work, but it is certainly not for the faint of heart. So, perhaps you’d like a career in healthcare that is a tad closer to home.
On City Roads
If you love driving, you might want to consider working as a paramedic. A paramedic’s role is to get to the scene of an emergency as quickly as possible. When there, they need to make sure that the patient is kept stable and in the best possible condition for hospital treatment. That’s not easy, and you need more than basic medical training. A good place to start if you are interested in working as a paramedic would be CPR training. Online CPR certification can easily be arranged after a short course. In fact, you could be on the road as a paramedic in a couple of years and earning at least 40K. It’s true, that wage doesn’t rival the paychecks of many doctors but it will keep you on the go, and you will still be helping people.
Without paramedics, it’s likely that doctors wouldn’t be able to save patients once they did reach the hospital. So, it is an essential service and plays a vital role in helping people. Another benefit of working as a paramedic is the excitement. It’s fair to see that it can be quite thrilling, racing to the scene of an accident through busy traffic. It is definitely a job that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
In Dentistry
Dentistry, believe it or not, is a part of medicine. It’s just a very specialized part of medicine and to be a dentist you do need medical training. That training and this is absolutely true, involves more than just understanding the issues of oral health. Why is this? Well, you may not realize this, but when a dentist checks your mouth, they aren’t just looking for issues with oral hygiene. They could be checking for signs of cancer. This is why they typically ask you to roll your jaw. Interestingly though, if they do find signs of cancer, they can’t treat you. They can only advise that you speak to a doctor about it.
So, one of the big benefits of working as a dentist is that you won’t have to deal with the emergency calls in the middle of the night. Nor will you be around death day in and day out. As such, it can be seen as more of an easy ride with great levels of pay. A lot of dentists earn well over one hundred thousand a year. We bet you didn’t know dentists were that rich, but they definitely can be.
In Research
The final possibility would be to avoid medical treatment completely and instead focus on the research side of medicine. It’s important to realize that research is a crucial area of medicine. Without research, we wouldn’t uncover the treatments and cures that help save lives. That’s why a large percentage of the people working in medicine are actually researchers, finding the paths that doctors should be taking with their patients.
The pay is absolutely phenomenal with this career path, and if you design your own research studies, you could be earning more than those dentists we mentioned. If you want to enter into research, you just have to choose your specialty and ensure that you gain the right level of qualifications. You’ll often begin as an assistant before working up to taking control of a study and choosing which variables to measure.
