How to Decide if Healthcare is the right Career for you
The field of healthcare can be very rewarding or it can be very daunting. How can you decide if healthcare is a right career for you? Choosing a healthcare position that does not fit your interests, abilities, and inner desires can end up being a daunting experience. There are many things to consider when choosing a career, even in healthcare. Your personality and interests will play a big part in the career or area you want to consider.
First of all, what are your motivations for choosing healthcare? Do you like working with the elderly? Are you compassionate for people and want to help and/or advocate for them? Do you like working with the different ethnicities and cultures? What kind of facility would you be most comfortable working at?
The first things to explore are the different areas of healthcare. There is the nursing at hospitals, nursing homes, and Doctor’s offices, physical therapy, labs, assisted living, home health, working at public health offices, healthcare education, medical billing, collections, admissions, medical records, and nursing in public schools. Each area of healthcare plays a different role in society. Observing others working in the different aspects and asking questions will give some idea of what each role plays.
What are your skills and strengths? Do you have exceptional interpersonal and communication skills? Do you have strong work ethics? These skills are a requirement in healthcare and can help you decide which career choice is right for you. Interpersonal and communication skills help to communicate and understand the needs of the patients you are working with. It is also imperative to have strong work ethics to uphold laws and protect patient rights. Strong work ethics and communication skills are needed for patient advocacy as well as other areas.
Some healthcare positions require twelve hour shifts that often lead to fifteen hour days, as well as, working a variety of days, including weekends, more especially in hospitals. What impact would that have on your family and personal life? It could require working four or five days straight with these hours depending on what area you go into. Hospitals and nursing homes are 24 hour facilities and could require working nights as well as days. These conditions can have huge impacts on families and personal life.
Education and training for healthcare careers can also be expensive as well as intensive. How would you afford it? What about child care while you attend? Nursing programs require you to learn clinical skills which could require travel during school to other facilities to obtain the hands on training skills. Transportation would be required, as well as long or late hours in order to do clinical training.
The choice of healthcare as a right career choice requires a lot of consideration of your interests and the impact it can have on family and personal life. Your individual interests can help you decide which area of healthcare is the right fit for you in order to be successful in a healthcare position. With careful thought, evaluation of interests, asking questions, and observing others, you can decide whether healthcare is the right career choice for you, or even, which area would be best.
