Be it the health sector, business, and management, education, or science and technology, the options are almost unlimited. Likewise, if you are pursuing a career in public health, you have loads of high-paying, lucrative opportunities.
Some healthcare issues are wider in scale than the one-on-one management done by doctors, pharmacists, surgeons, and nurses; this is where public healthcare workers step in.
Unlike traditional healthcare jobs, public healthcare demands more than medical expertise; you might need to know the ropes of statistics, anthropology, epidemiology, etc. depending on your career.
If public health is the line you have chosen to pursue, the following are some careers worth considering:
1. Medical director
One of the many widely sought-after managerial-level jobs in public health is that of a medical director, a professional overseeing any healthcare facility's work. If you have leadership and management skills, this option is worth considering.
As a medical director, you will oversee regulations, handle staff recruitment, monitor the budget, ensure quality care, and keep up-to-date with the latest medical trends. The more specific medical director job description will depend on the organization you are applying to.
Some aspects of directing – like budgeting and handling relations with chain vendors – are not going to be related to medicine at all; this is so because the main task of a medical director is not medical practice but to make sure that the facility stays afloat and keeps providing quality care.
What makes this post more appealing is its projected growth; the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates an average of 28% growth in medical and healthcare service management jobs between 2021 and 2023.
2. Health educator
Any healthcare project in a community can only succeed if there is some effective strategy for educating the masses and getting them to comply. Therefore, any community health project requires a health educator to disseminate information to the people and bring them into the loop.
Health educators usually act as a bridge between government projects and the community, implementing campaigns to improve public health.
A health educator may adopt different roles in different settings; for instance, you might be required to conduct a campaign in a rural community to get people to accept vaccination. Other times your task could be to connect people to important healthcare services in the community.
The minimum educational requirement for any health educator job is a bachelor's degree in public health education. For some organizations, you might also need a health education specialization.
3. Survey statistician
Before introducing any public health intervention, one of the first steps is to assess the risk thoroughly. Survey statisticians are the professionals who create the surveys used by public health professionals for this purpose.
Some of the major job duties of a survey statistician are to assess health concerns, collect data, design statistical models for interpreting data, interpret results, and present reports.
So for this profession, you need some specialization in statistics, mathematics, or another relevant field; often, at least a bachelor's degree in any of these is a must. For senior-level survey statistician jobs, a doctorate or master's degree in statistics might be a requirement.
4. Public health physician
So far, the professions discussed do not directly deal with medical practice; however, public health isn't all about managerial-level jobs. You can also find medical practice jobs in this field; a public health physician is one such job.
Public health physicians work in a dual role in the public health departments; in addition to individual-level clinical care, these professionals also design healthcare programs for the community.
To work as a public health physician, you need an MD or Doctor of Medicine degree and licensure for medical practice. Since these professionals are qualified as medical doctors, they are also in a position to advise public health initiatives and introduce campaigns for medical advice.
Public health physicians also play an active role in spreading awareness and educating the community about the risk factors related to certain illnesses. In addition to clinical care, these professionals work in community health centers, research institutes, and public hospitals.
As far as the salary is concerned, the income differs depending on your expertise, work experience, organization, location, and job requirements.
5. Healthcare consultant
Organizations hire healthcare consultants to review their progress and suggest improvements. These consultants analyze the company's work, check performance figures, and explore ways to increase productivity and efficiency.
Their task is to look for weaknesses in the system and give recommendations for fixing these vulnerabilities. They also examine the organization's administrative efficiency, financial process, work environment, and law compliance.
Some organizations hire healthcare consultants as contract employees, while other times, they work independently. You can often land a healthcare consultant job with a bachelor's degree in any healthcare field. Other employers might demand a master's degree or specialization.
6. Social and community service manager
If it is a managerial-level job you are looking into, this is another post you can consider. Social and community service managers are responsible for directly supervising the provision of care to the community. They collaborate with stakeholders and the community to implement healthcare projects.
Small and large organizations hire social and community service managers, usually with specializations in certain demographics. Practice in this profession is generally specialized; you may, for instance, choose to specialize in the care of children or people experiencing homelessness and work with these communities alone.
A bachelor's degree in public health, social work, or another relevant field is usually sufficient to apply for this job. Another good news is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics expected the projected growth for this job to be greater than average between 2020 and 2030.
Final words
When doing your job hunt, remember that employers today rely on recruitment through company websites, internet ad campaigns, video advertising, social media, online job sites, online recruiting software, and video interviews. Therefore, these are the best places to look into.
Some lucrative options in the public health field include a medical director, health educator, survey statistician, public health physician, and healthcare consultant. This list isn't exhaustive, but these are some amazing career options you shouldn't miss.