Are You Thinking Of A Career In Medicine?, Part 3

In part 2, we discussed the importance of understanding how your learned skills and natural talent play a part in the career you choose. Today, we’re going to discuss your dreams and goals.

Yes, your overall dreams and goals should play a HUGE part in the career you choose. After all, how much money you make, in a given year, determines which of your dreams and goals get fulfilled and which of them don’t.

If you have dreams of taking a yearly vacation, raising a family of four, owning an SUV, and living in a white picketed fence, a yearly salary of $20,000 isn’t going to get you there. A high school education simply won’t be enough and neither will an office job as a receptionist or a day laborer in a factory, but a career as a radiation therapist earning $45,000 to $274,000 per year can!

But let’s say that your dreams are to remain single, living a modest life that allows you to “make a real difference” in the lives you come in contact with. The career you choose still matters, even if the pay doesn’t. A career as a member of the medical staff—where your decisions help change lives on a daily basis—can help you feel as though you’re doing more with your life and the added benefit is the money you earn can be used for good, too.

Come back on Monday as we finish up our series on “Choosing A New Career”.

Are You Thinking Of A Career In Medicine?, Part 2

In part 1, we discussed the importance of understanding how your interests play a part in the career you choose. Today, we’re going to discuss your skills: both learned and natural talent.

Learned skills are taught to you. You’ve learned them by choice or they were impressed upon you because of a certain situation. Either way, you didn’t have that skill until something happened to cause you to learn them.

Natural talent is something you’re born with. For some reason, certain things come naturally to you and because they come naturally, you enjoy them more than things you struggle with. (To learn more about discovering your natural talent, visit Path Finders.)

No matter what career you choose, there are things you must learn. Whether it’s mathematical equations, how to administer the right dose of radiation, how to properly run certain machinery, or how to read a monitor screen you’ll have to learn something new. In fact, you’ll have to attend a course, listen to the instructor, take notes, apply what you’ve learned, and then test your way to the next course until eventually, you’ve reached your degree of choice.

Wouldn’t it be easier if you could take what you’re naturally good at and transfer those talents to your career of choice? Would it be easier to pass a course if you had some natural talent to fall back on? And wouldn’t you love your job more if it naturally drew your interest?

Come back on Friday as we discuss step three in our “Choosing A New Career” series.

Are You Thinking Of A Career In Medicine?

The first question high school students are asked when preparing college applications is, “What do you want to major in when you attend college?” For many of these students, the answer given is, “I don’t know, maybe I’ll just start with my general education courses. That way, I’ll have more time to figure it out.”

But what happens if they never figure it out? Will they settle for a career in a profession they hate? Or will they find themselves back in college, twenty years later, trying to complete a degree they wished they would’ve completed during their younger years?

If choosing the right career is hard for you, and you’ve toyed with working in the medical profession, our series on “Choosing A New Career” may help you make an informed and educated decision.

Step One: What Keeps Your Interest?

When most people think about their interests, they think of things that keep them occupied for long periods of time or things that hold their interests over many months or years. Others think of things they like to do when they’re not working. Things like their favorite movie or book genre, their favorite sports, an arts and crafts project, listening to a specific type of music or playing a certain instrument, and so on and so forth.

And while those “interests” have their place in your life, we’d like you to take a moment to think about what keeps your interests in terms of how your interests apply to a full-time career.

You see, if you choose a career you don’t enjoy, any work outside your career of choice—such as studying for an exam to keep your license current, reading medical journals, or returning to school to advance your career—will become a burden. That burden can then grow into resentment which can inadvertly hurt your chances of advancement, your personal relationships and even your patients.

Come back on Wednesday as we discuss step two in our “Choosing A New Career” series.