Boost Your Health Care Career With the Right Advanced Degree

If you're organized, driven, and have an interest in the business side of health care, you may excel in planning, directing, and coordinating medical and health services. The dynamic nature of health care, with its constantly evolving laws, regulations, and technological advancements, presents challenges you'd be well-equipped to handle. Whether you come from a background in business or health care, you'll be ready to take on the responsibilities of management.

Potential Career Paths:

• Administrative Services and Facilities Managers:Plan, direct, and coordinate activities that help a health care facility run efficiently.
• Executives or Administrators:Plan strategies and policies to help organizations such as hospital systems reach their goals.
• Human Resources Manager:Plan, coordinate, and direct the employee-focused functions of organizations such as hospitals or clinics.
• Purchasing Managers or Agents:Buy products and services such as medical supplies and equipment for hospitals or clinics.

Empathetic individuals who are drawn to helping others often find fulfillment in health care roles. With an interest in subjects like anatomy and biology, you're comfortable working with the human body and its functions. Whether through nursing, surgery, therapy, or routine care, your primary focus is to improve the health and well-being of others. You may have prior experience in patient care and seek to advance your career, or you're exploring a new path inspired by a desire to make a difference.

Potential Career Paths:

• Nursing: Nurses are essential in any health care setting and have many career advancement opportunities. Most nurses start as an LVN/LPN and move into an RN role. After that, an ARPN role allows nurses to specialize in areas such as nurse anesthetist, midwife, nurse practitioner, or other advanced careers.
• Dentistry: Dental hygienists often require only an associate's degree to enter the field and have a natural path to becoming dentists.
• Pharmacy: While a pharmacy degree is required to become a licensed pharmacist, pharmacy technicians help dispense medication and are on a natural path to their advanced degree.
• Therapy: There are a range of careers such as respiratory and occupational therapy that don't require a doctoral degree. These can be a good entry point into the medical field.
• Medicine: While common professional degrees in medicine include the MD and DO, some careers require less schooling that still involve patient care, such as a physician's assistant.
• Nutrition and Athletic Training: Preventive wellness is an important part of health care, and these careers often only require a bachelor's or master's degree.

Lifelong learners with a passion for sharing knowledge often thrive in roles that involve educating others about health care. You may possess specialized expertise in a specific health field and be eager to guide future medical professionals, or you may have an interest in promoting public health education to broader communities. With backgrounds in patient care or education, you're driven to use your skills to make a meaningful, lasting impact.

Potential Career Paths:

• Health Care Facilities: Work one-on-one with patients or their families to understand their diagnoses and treatment options. Organize education programs for the community about health-related topics.
• Executives or Administrators:Plan strategies and policies to help organizations such as hospital systems reach their goals.
• Human Resources Manager: Plan, coordinate, and direct the employee-focused functions of organizations such as hospitals or clinics.
• Purchasing Managers or Agents: Buy products and services such as medical supplies and equipment for hospitals or clinics.
• Community Health Workers: These individuals a more local focus, deeply understanding the communities they serve. They identify health-related issues, collect data, and discuss health concerns with the community. They work with health education specialists and social services to inform programs that address the health and wellness needs of their community.
• Medical Educators: These individuals often work in either universities or hospitals to support medical students or trainee doctors, or they work in a public health role in a local authority. Most university-based medical educators have transferred from a clinical career or continue to balance a clinical career with a research and teaching career as clinical academics.

Do you want to make groundbreaking discoveries? Are you intensely curious with a strong desire to understand how things work? Then scientific and research-oriented roles may be right for you. You may find satisfaction in analyzing lab results to assist physicians in improving patient outcomes or be motivated by the pursuit of curing diseases and developing life-changing treatments. With a background in science, you may also possess strong communication skills, including the ability to convey complex information effectively through writing.

Potential Career Paths:

• Medical Laboratory Scientists:Perform complex tests on patient samples to find data that plays an important role in identifying and treating cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other medical conditions.
• Clinical Pharmacologists:Research new drug therapies for health problems such as seizure disorders and Alzheimer's disease.
• Medical Pathologists: Research the human body and tissues, such as how cancer progresses or how certain issues relate to genetics.
• Toxicologists: Study the negative impacts of chemicals and pollutants on human health.

If you're someone who excels at connecting the dots and thinking in systems, you often thrive in roles that involve analyzing data and identifying patterns. Comfortable working with technology and complex spreadsheets, you bring a methodical approach to problem-solving. With a background in analytics or information systems, you may be interested in applying your expertise to health care, or you may currently hold administrative roles and seek to enhance your skills for greater impact in the field.

Potential Career Paths:

• Health Information Technologists: These individuals apply their knowledge of information technology and health care in a variety of ways. Some specialize in the electronic health records systems used for storing and retrieving patient data, while others analyze health care data for research or evaluation of products and services.
• Medical Registrars: Create and maintain databases of information, such as those used to track a particular disease or condition. Medical registrars may collect and analyze information for facility, regional, and national databases; review patients' records and pathology reports to verify completeness and accuracy; assign classification codes to represent the diagnosis and treatment; and then track treatment, survival, and recovery.
• Bioinformatics Specialists: Combine knowledge of computer programming, big data, and biology for careers that range from pharmaceutical and biotechnology development to biological and environmental analysis.