Health Careers Blog

Healthcare professionals are in extremely high demand – in many areas of the country, there are more jobs than there are people to fill them, particularly in highly specialized or advanced areas of medicine among nursing and physicians. In fact, I speak with many medical professionals each day, who have never given the job search process a second thought; they take it for granted that they'll always have or obtain a great medical job.

However, there is very tough competition for the best medical jobs, in the most desirable areas. If you are seeking a job with a top healthcare employer in a metropolitan or coastal area, you may find yourself competing with many other highly qualified candidates vying for the same coveted role.

So how do you set yourself apart from the field of applicants? It all starts with your CV. If your CV doesn’t catch the prospective employer’s attention, you won’t get an interview, much less a job. Recently, Carol Anderson, a hospice nurse and administrator in Virginia, set herself so far ahead of the pack, that she skipped the face-to-face interview altogether, and got the job over the phone! How did Carol do it? VisualCV.

VisualCV allows you to create an online version of your CV which includes references, work history, photos, and graphics. It’s an impressive, user-friendly tool that enables the prospective employer to easily assess a candidate’s qualifications with the click of a button. I highly recommend trying it out – it’s free! Need more inspiration? Check out Carol Anderson’s VisualCV, and her award-winning job search success story about landing her dream job in nursing.

Healthcare professionals enjoy a wide variety of options when selecting a work environment and a potential employer. As a healthcare job seeker, first you may want to try to narrow down the search by deciding which type of environment is best for you (hospital, medical office, non-profit, school/academic environment, clinic, government agency, etc.) Then, once you have an idea which type of environment is of interest to you, then you can begin to evaluate individual employers.

To hopefully assist you in your decision-making, I will continue to add employer profiles to the site regularly. Additionally, we will further examine the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of employers. Below are are a few specific employer profiles to get you started with the selection process.

• Tenet Health – For-profit health system
• American Heart Association – Non-profit
• Centers for Disease Control – Government Agency
• Hospitals - General Information About Hospital Jobs
• Working in a Medical Office Environment
• Working in a Hospice Environment

Didn't get that summer job you were hoping for in a hospital or medical office? Or, even if you did get that job, this is good news for any current or future medical professionals: you have a preceptorship starting this week, Thursday at 10pm Eastern, at the renowned Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland! No need to pack your bags, the hospital is coming to your living room each week for the next six weeks, on ABC. Ok, I know it's not the same as actually working, and of course watching TV doesn't pay any money, but watching Hopkins may be the next best thing to being in a hospital working along side these medical professionals.

The first episode of ABC’s new reality hospital drama Hopkins airs this Thursday June 26 at 10pm. The show was filmed at its namesake, Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore Maryland. Johns Hopkins is a very well-respected teaching hospital, known for its cutting-edge procedures and excellent training programs in a variety of medical specialties.

For those of you who are considering working as a physician or nurse, this show could be helpful for you to get a glimpse into the everyday lives of some of the nation’s most well-trained and successful medical professionals.

Touted as a sort of real-life version of its hit show Grey’s Anatomy, the six-part docu-drama follows several doctors and nurses, including a female urologist, a cardiac surgeon who is in his final year of training, and a brain surgeon who began his life in America as a migrant farm worker after crossing the border from Mexico. The producers of the show definitely seem to have successfully selected some of the more dramatic and inspirational stories to follow! However, the stories that unfold are real, as are the patients and medical professionals caring for them, according to the show’s website.

As part of your assignment to get full "credit" for your preceptorship, you must report your "experience" in the Health Careers forum after each "session" at Hopkins. I look forward to receiving your feedback! Perhaps, if the series at Hopkins is really powerful, as it appears to be, judging by the previews, it may even inspire more people to work in the medical field.

Did you know that one in four of all office visits takes place with a Family Practice (FP) physician? According to the American Association of Family Physicians (AAFP), FPs “provide the majority of care for America’s rural and underserved populations,” where specialists are often unavailable.

Whereas the trend in health care has been for providers to further specialize their care by disease, organ, age, or gender, family practice physicians “are dedicated to treating the whole person across the full spectrum of ages.” This integrated approach allows the physician to provide continual, all-encompassing care, and patients benefit from a relationship with a physician who knows their overall health status across all systems of the body.

To learn more about careers in Family Practice for physicians, the Family Practice physician profile provides more detailed information on compensation, career options, and work schedule for FPs.

More on Physician Careers:

• Physician Career Profile
• Getting into Medical School
• Paying for Medical School
• Physician Salaries by Town Size

Tim Russert’s tragic death has put heart health in the headlines throughout internet and television news, as physicians, featured in TV interviews, describe the acute thrombosis that took Russert’s life. In light of this sad news, some may be inspired to explore careers in cardiology, to help prevent such events from taking the lives of others in the future. If you’d like to prevent, diagnose, or treat heart disease one patient at a time, you may want to consider one of many career options in the growing field of cardiology.

Meanwhile, my heart goes out to the Russert family, particularly his son Luke. Perhaps this tragedy hits close to home for many, who like the Russerts, and my own family, may have experienced a very similar loss caused by a common killer, heart disease.

For me, heart health was already at the forefront of my mind as Father’s Day approaches. Many years ago, my own father's life was similarly cut short at the age of 52, also by a sudden heart attack, which is so shocking when it happens to someone so seemingly healthy and full of life. So, after you read more about health careers, be sure to give your dad a hug or a phone call, if you are fortunate enough to be able to do so. And hopefully, some of you may be moved to follow your heart into a career in cardiology, to help fight this wide-spread disease which affects so many people worldwide.

Nursing Assistants are professionals who care for the elderly, sick, or incapacitated persons who are unable to care for themselves. Nursing assistants work in patients’ homes, in long-term care facilities, nursing homes, and hospices.

According to the National Network of Career Nursing Assistants (NNCNA), nursing assistants are also known as caregivers, nurse aides, care assistant, in-home care aide. National Nursing Assistants’ week celebrates the wisdom, respect, and encouragement nursing assistants share with their patients and their patients’ families.

Due to the tremendous growth of this segment of healthcare and demand for the services of nursing assistants, this role made my Top Medical Careers list. However, nursing assistants give a lot of themselves for very little pay, relative to other careers. Nursing assistants provide a very personal and intimate level of care to very sick people, including feeding, bathing, and dressing patients when needed.

If you work as a nursing assistant, thank you for all of your hard work and specialized care. Your patients and their families may or may not be able to communicate their thanks and appreciation to you, due to their emotional or physical condition, but certainly, nursing assistants are impacting many lives in a very special way every day.

Learn more about nursing assistants, and other top health careers in Top Medical Jobs.

If you’re not already working in the healthcare industry, or training and studying to work in the healthcare field, now might be a good time to consider it. Why? The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly report today, with the news that unemployment rates jumped from 5.0% to 5.5% in May, which is the sharpest monthly increase in the past 20 years. Some analysts fear that this signals a forthcoming recession. However, healthcare amazingly continues to add jobs, while other sectors such as construction, manufacturing, and retail, continue to decrease.

Even if you are not clinically trained as a doctor or nurse, you may be able to take your existing skill set and transfer it into the healthcare field. For example – if you are in sales, you could apply for medical sales positions. If your experience is in accounting or finance, you could seek accounting positions in a hospital or medical products or services company. If you work in Human Resources or recruiting, you could look for opportunities with healthcare facilities or healthcare companies. Additionally, administrative and support roles in healthcare are projected to experience some of the greatest growth, and administrative skills are easily transferable to any industry, with a bit of on-the-job training.

Not sure where to start? Here are a few ideas to help you find a way to jump into the growing healthcare industry.

• Before You Start a Healthcare Career
• Top Medical Jobs
• Medical Jobs without a Degree

You may have heard the saying “the clothes make the man”. Well, that may be true, but the surgical scrubs do not make the doctor, as one Atlanta man recently found out. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Eric Perteet wanted to meet women, and what better way to do that than to hang out in a hospital all day pretending to be a doctor? Mr. Perteet even dressed the part with scrubs, surgical booties, and a hand-crafted ID badge, complete with Scotch tape. He then proceeded to troll the hospital for women every day for at least six weeks. (There has to be an easier way to meet chicks!) Oh, and Mr. Perteet was already married, by the way! (His wife is seeking an annulment, while Perteet cools his heels in his jail cell.)

The mock doc went unnoticed for nearly two full months; his wife dropped him off daily at the hospital. Until, finally, another staff member noticed that Perteet was never with patients, and he usually was sitting around reading magazines and talking to women instead of working, even when the hospital was busy with many patients.

One has to wonder: how does this happen? How does a hospital not have better security? Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, where Dr. McPhony "worked" states that no patients were endangered, nor did any patients have any direct contact with “Dr.” Perteet, according to the AJC article.

If you are currently working in a hospital, do you feel that your place of employment has adequate security? Have you ever experienced any security breaches at your hospital? If so, please feel free to share them here, or in the health careers forum. Did your hospital tighten security after the incident, or maintain status quo? In the Atlanta case, Piedmont Hospital is not making any changes to their security policies, according to the AJC. Hopefully, the hospital's management team will at least take some time to train the staff on how to spot a mock doc!

Ultrasound technology, which uses high-frequency sound waves to create digital images, is used to diagnose a variety of health problems, including those of the abdominal organs, brain, heart, and more. However, most people associate sonography with pregnancy, since just about every pregnant woman has one or more sonograms performed to check on the progress and growth of the unborn baby.

Many sonographers enjoy taking part in this very special time in a patient’s life. However, in the medical field, the news is not always positive, so you have to be prepared to handle that as well. If you’re capable of that and more, a career in sonography could be for you! Learn more about pay rates, job responsibilities, and work environment in the sonographer job overview and career profile.

Harvard medical and science students have joined forces with editors of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) to publish an online resource, The Next Generation. The Next Generation is published monthly and caters to an audience of future physicians, particularly medical and pre-medical students.

Harvard medical and science students compose most of the original content, and the publication also highlights several articles which are published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). Additionally, NEJM editors serve as advising editors of The Next Generation. According to a statement on The Next Generation website, the publication was created in response to “an insufficiency in easily accessible and permanent information for premeds… regarding the systems of discovery, policy, and care delivery” of health care.

More on physician careers from your guide:

• Physician Career Profile
• Surgeon Career Profile
• American Medical Schools vs. International Med Schools
• Physician Compensation in Relation to Town Size