Now more than ever, healthcare agencies and facilities are facing staffing shortage that leaves health specialist jobs in high demand. For those who want a new career in a field that’s guaranteed to allow you to help other folks with their health problems and make people feel better every day, a specialization in the health field can be like a breath of fresh air. When you’re used to working in corporate administration jobs or have a background in fields where you don’t feel like you’re truly helping people, you may feel tired and stuck until you take the leap to become a healthcare specialist.
Before you dive headfirst into a new career as a healthcare specialist, you should do your research to find out what specializations may appeal to you. Although you could start this journey with a strong impression of what you may want to do in healthcare, you might also find that your position on what you’d like to do in healthcare could change if you were exposed to information related to other fields and specialties within healthcare. All it can take to sway you in a new direction is being exposed to new information about a healthcare specialty that you never knew was a thing you could do. Before you know it, you may be swept in a direction you never expected thanks to the advice of a mentor, friend, colleague, or influencer on social media, so you shouldn’t be so rigid that you haven’t left room for growth and redirection.
Study Stem Cells
If you want to work toward health specialist jobs that are truly cutting edge, you should consider studying stem cells. With innovations in stem cell therapy improving the lives of patients, you won’t have to look too far in this field to find reasons why it could be a rewarding career for you. If you’re struggling to find information on stem cell treatments, you can look up the other name this field uses for this treatment called “regenerative medicine.” Restoring people’s lives with this type of unique healthcare option can be enough to keep you excited and on your toes every day at work when you work in a lab for this kind of research.
Work in Women’s Health
Sometimes, the most exciting and rewarding health specialist jobs you can do involve working with a specific population. If you have a vested interest in making women and related populations as healthy as they can be, you may want to look into what it would take to specialize in gynecology as a doctor, nurse, certified nurse practitioner, or physician’s assistant. Some folks who work in women’s healthcare may want to work as nurses, midwives, or doulas in labor and delivery wards while others may want to serve underserved female populations by working in women’s health clinics in rural or low-income urban areas.
Before you can work toward a career in women’s health, you’ll need to decide what capacity you want to work in this field. Although you may be content with being a CNA on a labor and delivery unit, you may also want to think about how your initial entry into the field could blossom into a long-term career. You could go from being a CNA on the floor to an RN to a BSN or even a nurse practitioner if you have the drive to keep moving up the ladder in this field. The more you know, the more you’ll be able to help your patients with a range of concerns from pregnancy to fertility issues to ovarian or uterine cancers.
Participate in Hormone Health
As you may know, our hormones play a huge role in our overall health. When our hormones are amiss, we may need hormone therapy to return hormone levels to their optimal range. Although you may need to have a basic understanding of what different hormones do in the human body for any health specialist job, you can dive deeper into how hormones affect our health and well-being by studying them as a specialty in a medical institution.
Work with Kids
When you love working with children, you may want to consider looking into open positions in a pediatric care center. When children get sick, it can take a special type of person to be able to comfort them when they’re ill or in pain. Sometimes, folks may hesitate to work with children because they may worry about how they’ll handle seeing a child who is struggling, especially if they have kids of their own or kids in their lives. Thankfully, when you work with kids, you not only get to help them when they’re having a hard time, but you also get to provide relief and see them get better enough to be discharged from your care.
To work with kids, you may need specific credentials in child development, pediatric care, or other specialties. Depending on how you want to work with kids, you may also need skills related to education if you want to work as a teacher in a therapeutic school setting. Before you apply for a role, review the requirements carefully.
Study Plastic Surgery
There are plenty of reasons why you may take on health specialist jobs in plastic surgery. You may enjoy making people feel good as a facelift surgeon. You might also like being a surgical tech and assisting with those surgeries.
Join a Dermatology Office
If you have a passion for skincare, you may want to focus on researching health specialist jobs that will allow you to use that passion to fuel your drive to work towards your goals in that field. When you know how awful acne can be and how it can affect one’s self-esteem, it may motivate you to study to become an acne dermatologist or work alongside those professionals in a dermatology office. Whether you go to medical school to become a dermatologist or you become a technician who assists dermatologists with procedures, you’ll find this career worthwhile.
Some folks may want to transition to working in dermatology after completing relevant coursework or work experience in a related field like esthetician studies. If you’ve worked in a spa setting or somewhere that involves promoting skincare products, you may find it relatively easy to transition from that setting to a dermatology office. Once you have all the necessary credentials and training, you could even set your heart on becoming a partner in a dermatology office and helping patients that way.
Become a Surgeon
As you may know, working towards specializing in surgery for health specialist jobs takes time, dedication, and money to afford the high costs of tuition that come with medical school. If you have the resources, energy, and motivation to spend years of your life working towards a larger goal, you may want to consider becoming a heart surgeon. While surgery might be too gruesome or technical for some folks, others may find it fascinating and engaging.
Practice Alternative Medicine
Some health specialist jobs fall outside of traditional medical settings. If you like to work in spaces that allow for practicing cutting-edge treatments that might not be considered mainstream, you may enjoy working in a chiropractor office as a chiropractor or other professional. If you like to work on the administrative side of healthcare, you could try to get a job as an administrative assistant or office manager in a chiropractic office to test the waters before you commit to studying chiropractic practices further.
Study the Head and Brain
For those who want to take on health specialist jobs that deal with the mind, there are plenty of specialties available. You can work in the outpatient office of a psychiatrist or therapist. You can also work in research and help find pioneering migraine treatment options for those who suffer from migraines. If you have an interest in seizure disorders and the proper training, you can also become an EEG technician or work in inpatient epilepsy monitoring unit settings as a technician.
For those who want to complete their training as doctors and specialize in the mind, there are several paths you could take. If you want to treat folks who are suffering from mental health conditions, you could either prescribe medications as a psychiatrist or you could offer therapeutic modes of treatment as a therapist, counselor, or psychologist. If you would prefer to help populations who are dealing with neurological disorders, you could become a neurologist or an epileptologist.
Keep in mind that none of these paths are quick or easy-if you become a neurologist, psychiatrist, psychologist, or other specializing physician, you’ll need to spend years studying your specialty and taking exams to qualify you to practice medicine in this capacity. While this may deter some folks who need to make a quick transition to a new job, you may be able to succeed on this path if you are determined enough to see it through. While some people who try to go through medical school don’t end up finishing the coursework, many achieve their dreams and help people every step of the way, so don’t let the length of this track discourage you from doing what you want to do.
Work on the Insurance Side of Things
For those who want to avoid working with blood, vomit, and other bodily fluids, it can be wise to choose health specialist jobs that keep you on the administrative side of healthcare. For those who have a background in administrative assistant positions, processing data, or customer service, getting the right certifications to work in billing, coding, and insurance claims can be a natural fit. If you love working with employee healthcare plans and helping people get coverage for their healthcare costs, you may find this side of the health industry particularly fulfilling. Of course, if you try working with insurance claims and find that it gives you a perpetual headache, you can always use your skills in that side of the industry to transition to a role that seems to better fit your personal work style or goals.
If you intend to work in insurance, you can also work for an insurance agency as an insurance agent or other qualified insurance professional. Before you apply for jobs in this sector, you should research what qualifications you need to work in it. Some states and regions may allow you to work as an insurance agent with nothing more than a high school diploma or equivalent while others may need you to get specific licenses before you can take on this position. Working in insurance can be exhausting and require long hours, so you should be prepared to make some sacrifices if working in insurance is your dream at this time.
Sometimes, you may also want to help others in healthcare in a specific part of the industry because you have personal experience or know someone you love who has experience receiving treatment in that field. In that case, you should follow your heart while preparing yourself for the mental and emotional toll that it may take to expose yourself to that sector if you’ve been away from it for a while or you felt traumatized by that part of the healthcare industry. Going to therapy to process the trauma or working through it in the way that feels best to you may be a good first step to transitioning to a healthcare specialist role in that field. After all, professional and personal goals can intertwine sometimes while they’re causing us to work on our personal lives as much as they push us to achieve on a professional level.
While you might think of health specialist jobs as something that doctors and nurses do, folks in any industry can take the skills they use in their current sector to benefit them in launching a career in healthcare. Folks who work in the education sector may be able to specialize in writing curricula for undergraduate or post-secondary medical programs and people who work in a field as far removed from healthcare as the arts can create medical illustrations in their chosen specialization in healthcare. Ultimately, the only limits to what you can do as a healthcare specialist are the ones you accept.
