Signs That a Medical Career is Right for You

Have you been thinking about future career prospects? Does the idea of working in the medical field seem like something you would like to do? Not sure if it would be a good fit for you? You’re certainly not alone. Many people are attracted to a career in medicine because it is a worthwhile field where you get to help people every day and because it can be very well paying, but they also know that it is a huge commitment with lots of responsibility and often long working hours to contend with, too.

It’s definitely a tough one, so to help you get more of an idea about whether a medical career might be the right choice for you, check out these tell-tale signs that you were meant to work in the field:

You Like Caring for Others

A bit part of the job, whether you’re a doctor, nurse or even a pharmacist is caring and a lot of that caring is hands-on. It’s one think caring about people and wanting them to be well, but it’s a completely different thing to actually participate in that care, holding patients when they’re sick comforting them when they’re upset and helping them to do the most basic things that we all take for granted that we can do for ourselves. If you are more than happy to care for people, knowing that it is one of the most rewarding things to do, and you’re able to easily empathize with people, you are exactly the kind of person that the medical profession needs.

You Want to Work with People

Healthcare is hugely people orientated, which means that if you are to succeed in such a career, you will need to feel at ease around others. You’ll need to be as comfortable working in a team of professionals as you are helping outpatients and meeting their needs. You’ll spend some of your time working independently, but for the most part, you will need to liaise with many people daily and if you cannot see yourself doing that, then a medical career might not be exactly the right fit for you. This doesn’t mean that if you’re an introvert you can forget healthcare – there are lots of introverts working int he field, but you must be able to handle social situations and deep conversations with ease if you want to be all you can be in the medical world.

You’re Great in a Crisis

When you’re working around sick and injured people every day, you see your fair share of crises and tragedies and it is important that you can handle them without crumbling. If you see someone crashing, you need to be able to run in there and help them out immediately instead of freezing in horror, for example. Of course, it can be difficult to know how well you’ll deal in a crisis, which is why it’s never a bad idea to get your cpr and first aid certification and volunteer with an organization like St John International, where you may well have cause to see how well you do, before you commit to a medical career. However, you never really know how you’ll react in any situation until it happens, so don’t let everything hinge on this one point.

You Aren’t Squeamish

It goes without saying that you cant afford to be squeamish when you’re working in healthcare either. Depending on your role, you may be regularly exposed to sights as diverse as blood and vomit to the inner workings of the human body and you need to be able to remain cool, calm and composed as you do. It’s not always pleasant, but it is necessary and if you don’t have a strong stomach and a coolness under pressure, you will probably struggle.

You Love to Learn

When you work in the medical field it isn’t a case of passing your exams and never having to work again. Whether you’re a surgeon or a health assistant, you will be required to undergo continuous professional development throughout your life. The field of medicine changes so rapidly and if you are unable or unwilling to keep up with it, you will very quickly find yourself out of a job. So, if you hate education, you may want to look at other roles. If, on the other hand, you simply cannot get enough of learning new things, you’ll be in heaven in the healthcare industry.

You’re a Hard Worker

There are no two ways about it – if you want to work in healthcare, you have to be a hard worker. There are very few slackers to be found in hospitals and clinics and that’s exactly because there isn’t time to be a slacker and slacking off could have very dire consequences for any patients you are responsible for. The good news is, if you work hard, there is a very good chance that you will get promoted and be promoted regularly.

Money Isn’t Your Main Motivation

Although you can make a lot of money in some medical positions, money should never be your main motivation for getting into healthcare. Why? Because although you can make a lot of money, you have to work very hard for it and because when you could hold a patient’s life in your hands, money should not be your primary motivation or your main concern at that moment.

You Aren’t Proud

Proud people; people who won’t ask for help in case it makes them look bad are not the kind of people who should be working in the medical field where it is essential that you know what you’re doing and that you admit it when you don’t. It doesn’t matter how hard you work or how good your grades in medical school are if you aren’t sure about something you must speak up because it could be a matter of life or death.

You’re Able to Detach

Although caring for your patients is essential in the medical profession, it is also important that you are able to detach yourself from people and situations and not get too involved. It would be pretty difficult to work in a hospital and stay mentally healthy and functioning if you fell to parts every time a patient sadly died or you weren’t able to solve a tough medical problem quickly. No, detachment is an important part of the whole healthcare thing.

You’re Great at Time Management

Being a doctor who’s late to surgery or a nurse who completes here rounds seriously late because she was off running errands and forgot the time is really not acceptable. Patients expect a certain level of care and colleagues need to know that they can rely on each other to be there when they’re needed and tardiness when it is a regular occurrence, will simply not be tolerated.

You Love a Challenge

Medical work can often be very challenging. It isn’t always the case of looking in a textbook to get a diagnosis or asking a patient to tell you what’s wrong and having them explain to you the exact thing that you need to here, and that means that you need to be able to solve puzzles, make deductions and come to correct conclusions, If you like things to be laid out all nice and easy for you, a career in healthcare is probably not calling you at this time.

You’re Selfless

When you’re a healthcare professional, you can’t always be thinking about yourself and your needs, what you’re going to do when you get off – you need to be completely 100 percent focused on your patients at all times. If you take your eye off the ball, not only might it seem like you don’t really care about them, but you could end up making mistakes that could prove disastrous too.

You Aren’t A Quitter

Getting through medical school, for example, is not easy. You have to work long hours doing things that are totally new to you and very academic, often failing at the first hurdle and having to do things again and again and again without so much as a nap until you get it right. If you can’t handle that, then you’ll want to quit and if you quit you’ll never ever get to where you want to be. It’s okay to fail, but if you want to work in the medical industry, you need to get back up again and do what you know needs to be done.

If after reading this you’ve been put off because you think you don’t have as many of these qualities as you should, don’t give up just yet because many of these things can be learned if you’re really passionate. Of course, if you have none of these signs that you’re right for a medical career and you aren’t willing to acquire these qualities over time, then you should perhaps pursue other avenues, but nothing is over until it’s over and it doesn’t have to be over until you quit.