If you’re interested in joining the healthcare field, here’s the good news, you can do this without having to take the physician route. You’ll also be happy to know that some non-physician roles make the for the best paying jobs healthcare field.
Thanks to the growing need for healthcare administrators, dental assistants, radiology technologists, midwives, and medical assistants, to mention a few, salary scales are expanding to include these new healthcare professionals. Below, we go into more detail about what each of these roles entails, how to train for them, and what to expect as financial compensation, so keep reading!
Radiology Technologists
This healthcare field involves the use of radiation to create images of internal organs, bones, and other body tissues to help establish the cause of a patient’s medical condition. Also known as radiographers, their job involves operating and caring for imaging diagnostic equipment, prepping patients for medical exams, evaluating MRI images, and maintaining patient records.
Radiologic technologists work in outpatient centers, hospitals, medical labs, and private imaging clinics. If you’re a high school student interested in pursuing a career in radiology, the sciences and math should be subjects you excel in. After or right before the end of high school, a college application consulting firm can help you figure higher education paths for radiography.
Besides helping you identify top colleges that offer radiology as an undergraduate course, a college admissions consultant will also help you through the entire college admissions process. By this we mean, an admissions expert will help you improve your test scores through intensive test prep practices, coach you through your college essay, and improve your success rate of getting into your dream school. Radiographers in the United States earn an annual salary of $63,000.
Dental Assistants
After receiving their certification, dental assistants can work in private dental practices, local government health clinics by performing administrative tasks. Most of these administrative tasks are tied in with patient care and involve updating patient records, offering dental hygiene solutions to patients, billing insurance, and helping patients relax before their appointment/procedures, to mention a few.
Besides having an interest in the field of study, becoming a dental assistant also requires you to have strong organizational skills, a knack for detail, and great listening skills. Besides this, you’ll also need to join a year-long Dental Assisting certificate program or an associate degree. On average, dental assistants make about $41,100 per year.
Medical Assistants
If you’re looking to join the healthcare industry, training as a medical assistant can be a faster way to get in, as opposed to going to medical school for a full-term nursing or medical degree. In general, doctors typically take up to 12 years in medical school, nurses up to four years, while medical assistants only need a high school diploma, and to complete year-long healthcare degree programs to become certified medical assistants. In most cases, most medical assistants get their best healthcare experience through on-the-job training.
Medical assistants work with doctors based in actual hospitals, senior living communities, private clinics, and other medical facilities to help with routine administrative tasks. Some of these administrative tasks include recording patients’ biodata, billing insurance, checking patient vitals, prescribing some medication, preparing blood samples for lab testing, and scheduling patients’ appointments.
According to a 2020 report by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, BLS, the 700,000 medical assistants working in the United States earn $36,900 per year.
Nurse-Midwives
Nurse-midwives have special training in gynecological issues which qualifies them to offer pre and post-natal care, assist with delivery, and help patients with family planning services. Although this healthcare field requires a master’s degree from a top university, you’ll also need to get an RN license first. As a nurse-midwife, you can expect to earn about $115,540 per year.
