Working in healthcare doesn’t necessarily have to involve any interactions with patients. In fact, you may not even need any in-depth medical knowledge for some career paths in the field. If you enjoy the idea of helping make the world a healthier place, but don’t want to dedicate your life to a “classic” physician career, there are lots of alternative options available that you should consider. Healthcare is a huge field nowadays, full of different opportunities for people with all sorts of backgrounds.

Technologist

There are many kinds of technologist positions in healthcare, and it’s a general term that covers all sorts of work that’s, you guessed it, technical in nature. You may work on research projects in a lab, assist physicians on working with complex equipment like MRI scanners, or even work on software projects related to large-scale analytics and cutting-edge research involving artificial intelligence and similar approaches. If you’ve got some technical aptitude and the willingness to learn your biology and chemistry fundamentals, this can be a great opportunity to make a real difference in healthcare. Keep in mind that some technician paths can be quite demanding, both in terms of underlying technical knowledge, as well as overall workload.

Medical Writer

Medical writers are an invaluable asset to the healthcare community that unfortunately often get overlooked in favor of other specialists involved in their projects. The basic job of a medical writer is to consolidate and summarize various kinds of medical data, such as research reports, evaluation results, product use instructions, safety warnings, and more. For those with a strong aptitude for writing, it can be an exciting job with lots of things to learn. You will need a medical writing certification to get started, so if this sounds like something that might interest you, it’s important to start polishing your profile as early as possible.

Finances

Every large industry needs financial experts, and the healthcare sector is no exception. In fact, things are getting particularly tricky on that front in recent years, with the rise of various new technologies that require even more qualified experts than before. Those who enjoy working with money will have lots of opportunities to thrive in this environment, though it’s worth noting that healthcare finances are a particularly difficult subset of finances as a whole. If you enjoy a good challenge, this should definitely be right up your alley though.

There is no shortage of options for getting involved in healthcare, even if you don’t enjoy the idea of becoming a physician that much. And the sooner you take the time to explore those opportunities, the better your long-term chances of success are going to be. There is a lot you can accomplish in healthcare in those alternative directions, but most of them take some time to prepare your profile and brush up on the necessary skills. In some cases, you might have to deal with predetermined durations for certain training courses, which can take several months or even longer to complete.