Six Reasons Healthcare Education Should Be Your Next Step
Date: June 22, 2022
Modern healthcare encompasses more than just roles as doctors or nurses, working in hospitals, or triaging wounds. Those interested in entering the healthcare industry can choose from multiple dynamic options, including work in dental assisting, diagnostic medical imaging, medical assisting, psychiatric support individuals, nuclear medicine, and beyond.
Whether you’ve just finished high school or have been out of school for some time, it’s essential to consider where you want your career to lead you and how you want to get there. If you have a passion for learning, why not invest in academia that interests you while helping others? Here are a few reasons healthcare education could be an appropriate next step.
1. You Can Choose a Career Helping Others
Whether you’re pursuing a path en route to vocational nursing or working toward a career in nuclear medicine, a vocation within the healthcare industry is designed with one goal: service to others. Further, healthcare work supports more than just patients—a healthcare professional functions alongside staff, researchers, physicians, allied health professionals, and whole medical teams. One can expect to meet doctors, nurses, and specialists of all expertise, backgrounds, and educational levels.
Further, one can anticipate working with designated medical individuals in collaboration toward clients’ well-being or analyzing best care options and patient outcomes.
2. You Can Choose From a Variety of Healthcare Career Options
When considering a program, prospective students may choose from various options. When at your yearly dental checkup, do you ask how coronal polishing works or precisely what Wisdom Teeth does? Then, perhaps a role as a dental assistant might put a smile on your face.
While working out at the gym, do you ever ask why certain joints and muscles ache while others don’t? It could be a physical therapist assistant role; helping patients regain mobility and recapture their range of motion might put a “spring in your step.”
Did you find the ultrasound before the birth of your child fascinating? Perhaps providing early disease detection as an imaging professional should be your next vocational vision.
At Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts, one can pick from various programs, including certificate, diploma, associate, and bachelor-level courses. These encompass coursework in multiple modalities, including:
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- Dental Assistant
- Medical Assistant
- X-ray Technician with Medical Assistant Skills
- Vocational Nursing
- Ultrasound Technology
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging
- Nuclear Medicine Technology
- Physical Therapist Assistant
- Radiologic Technology
- Diagnostic Medical Imaging
- Nursing (BSN)
- Nursing (RN to BSN)
- Radiologic Therapeutic Technology
Browse through the complete program list.
3. A Healthcare Career Can Keep You on Your Toes
As healthcare continues to change daily, many things considered helpful in vintage times would now be considered dangerous. Diet fads are here today and gone the next. Hospitals used to be regarded as places to go and die. Today they are considered wellness centers. The doctor used to visit by horse, and then patients were examined. Many today are seen by telehealth or Zoom appointments.
Change and care seem synonymous. For example, in 1884, drops of cocaine solution were used as a topical anesthetic. Cocaine came even to be used in eye and sinus surgeries.1 Another example, over a hundred years ago, addictive drugs like heroin were given to children to cure common coughs. Electric shock waves termed “therapy” were used for health purposes, as “miracle” diet pills were handed out like candy.1 The healthcare industry looked drastically different, even 20, 50, or 100 years ago.
As the industry evolves, medical professionals continue learning as well. If you have a passion for education and can never know enough, a healthcare vocation may be the right fit.
Future healthcare professionals can expect lifelong learning via continuing education courses, books, lecture series, video tutorials, ongoing releases of industry best practices, and all evolving materials within their modalities while contributing to excellence in the profession and the world. If you say “yes” to learning, you may want to enter this profession.
4. The Medical Industry is Growing
Medical professionals are in unprecedented demand. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, healthcare careers expect a higher-than-average growth rate. Employment in healthcare occupations is projected to grow 16 percent from 2020–2030, much faster than the average for all occupations. Experts believe the growth will add more than 2.6 million new jobs.2
With growth trends expected to emerge, changes will also occur. According to a recent article in Forbes Magazine, these include some emergent trends, including the following:
Strategies Focused on Innovation, including ESG (Environment, Sustainability, Governance). Healthcare entities will likely be concerned with and make decisions based on social impact.
Data Analytics to Accelerate Biotechnology Innovation as our understanding of genetics and disease evolves, the healthcare industry will likely rely on data analytics more than ever.
Consumer-Facing Telemedicine and Digital Care Solutions. Likely the healthcare industry will look for more consumer-facing solutions such as telemedicine and virtual care programs allowing doctors to monitor patients remotely using sensors that track vital signs and health records.3
5. You Love Science
“It’s all in the science,” or “as the science says,” are frequent statements in the healthcare community, so much one might say, “science is health” or “health is science.” According to a recent article excerpt from the National Library of Medicine, the author states, “Health research has high value to society. It can provide important information. This includes data about disease trends and risk factors, outcomes of treatment, or public health interventions. Additionally, it may include functional abilities, patterns of care, and health care costs and use.”4
Ideally, the circle to patient care begins by understanding scientific principles. It then moves to learn how disease, injury, or sickness interact with those laws of science for positive change.
While the importance of science sounds like a given, one can’t stress enough the acumen needed in science basics and foundational classes. Depending on one’s focus, a student should expect to know biology, anatomy, chemistry, physiology, and other sciences. Having a genuine subject interest in science can make one’s school more exciting and fulfilling.
6. You Can Enter the Industry in a Relatively Short Time
To enter the medical industry, one must not take years of schooling. Allied healthcare support modalities for entry-level health roles generally have shorter academic commitment times than people realize. Depending on one’s program of interest, it’s possible to enter the healthcare industry within even a year. For example, the medical assistant program can be completed in as little as eight (8) months.*
Likewise, the dental assistant program can be finished in eight (8) months.† While some programs require prerequisites or advanced education and testing, others surprisingly do not. For example, to embark on the Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts’ accredited vocational nurse program, one needs only a high school‡ or General Equivalency Diploma (GED). The program’s completion time is typically around 13 months†, including holidays and vacations.
Want to Take the Next Step?
If you’re considering a healthcare career, learn how to get started at Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts. Contact us to learn more about our programs, enrollment processes, and steps. You owe yourself to check out our guidelines and entry-level requirements for your desired program or leftover dream.~
*30 Approved Instructional Weeks
†32 Approved Instructional Weeks
‡ In some states, one does not need a high-school diploma to enter the VN vocation.5
Citations
1 Holland, Brynn. “7 of the Most Outrageous Medical Treatments in History.” HISTORY, A&E Television Networks, LLC. September 5, 2017. (Accessed April 28, 2022.)
2 “Healthcare Occupations.” Occupational Outlook Handbook. Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor. September 8, 2021. (Accessed November 15, 2021.)
3 Gupta, Anita. “Council Post: The Future of Health: Three Healthcare Trends for 2022.” Forbes, Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family, December 14, 2021. (Accessed April 28, 2022.)
4 Nass, Sharyl J., et al. Beyond the HIPAA Privacy Rule: Enhancing Privacy, Improving Health through Research. Www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, Online version ed., Bethesda, MD, National Academies Press (US), 2009. (Accessed April 28, 2022.)
5 Bucceri Androus, Amanda. 2020. “Who Can Use the Term Nurse?” Registered Nursing.org. December 10, 2020. (Accessed May 20, 2021).
