Many people like the idea of working in a career where they get to help others and deal with people from all walks of life, and they love the thought of being involved in healthcare.
However, some people don’t move forward with working in the sector because they’re either scared of the sight of blood or don’t like the idea of having to deal with it regularly.
It’s essential to keep in mind, though, that there are plenty of healthcare careers that don’t involve the sight of blood and where you can still do plenty of good. Here are some you might like to consider.
Pharmaceutical Roles
One of the great options for you may be working in the pharmaceutical arena. For example, you could train as a pharmacy technician. These people help pharmacists to find, dispense, pack, and then label a variety of prescribed medicines for customers.
They also take care of numerous administrative tasks, such as tracking and ordering inventory, processing insurance claims, and filing paperwork. They typically work in pharmacies or hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and other environments where the processing and dispensing of medication is required.
Alternatively, you might like to get into the job of selling pharmaceuticals. This involves visiting medical practitioners, healthcare managers, and the like to recommend and educate people on new and popular medications.
Sonographer
Another option to consider is becoming a sonographer. People in these positions learn how to use special equipment to take images of the inside of patients’ bodies. They must adjust patients as needed to get a proper image of the part of the body that requires analysis and know how to talk with patients to make them feel comfortable and okay to be near the sonography machines.
Sonographers generally provide the images they take to physicians or other healthcare professionals. The photos are used to help assess patient conditions and diagnose issues or give the all-clear as needed. Sonographers can work with patients from all age groups and backgrounds, so being able to talk effectively with a wide variety of people is essential.
Healthcare Manager
If you’re interested in helping people by leading a team, you might like to work your way up to being a healthcare manager. People in these positions need hands-on work experience in healthcare and excellent leadership skills to manage a group of workers. If you go down this path, you’ll need to focus on ways to boost patient safety at the organization you work for and improve healthcare quality while also handling admin tasks and developing and managing set budgets.
Healthcare managers often supervise entire healthcare facilities, or they can manage a single department. They can work in hospitals, government departments, nursing homes, healthcare or rehabilitation centers, clinics, and more. Healthcare managers will interact with and lead people from many different areas, including those in medical roles, custodial staff, government employees, various suppliers, and other fields. They also need to know how to handle strategic planning and public relations and often act as a media spokesperson for their organization.
Counselor
Getting into a therapy role can be the right fit for those who prefer to see firsthand how they can positively influence patients yet still avoid the sight of blood. You might like to become a counselor and help patients to identify their feelings, limiting beliefs, and traumas and assist them in managing how they deal with such things.
There are many specializations to consider in this field. For instance, you might like to become a couples counselor, where you help pairs work on their relationships, or to focus on crisis counseling, which means assisting those who have been through significant traumas (such as domestic violence, kidnapping, rape, or witnessing or being involved in a terror attack) to move forward. You could also become a rehabilitation or guidance counselor, among other specialties.
Health Information Manager
If you’re someone with an analytical mind who enjoys working with data, you might find that a health information management role is ideal. This administrative healthcare pathway involves compiling, organizing, maintaining, overseeing, checking the accuracy of, and protecting all sorts of different patient health details. This list might include data related to patient medical histories, test results, symptoms, diagnoses, medical procedures, etc.
You will need to keep data accurate, accessible, and secure and provide a helpful link between medical staff, their patients, third-party payers, and other administrative, clinical, and operational functions. You must know how to design effective data systems, work with numerous tech tools, and create detailed reports, among other functions.
Other non-blood-related roles to consider include medical equipment sales or repairs, physical therapy, chiropractic or occupational therapy work, medical billing or coding, medical research, or medical equipment repairs.
As you can see, there are plenty of options mentioned above, plus others, to learn more about, so don’t give up on your healthcare career dreams just because you get a little (or a lot) squeamish around blood.
