Health Courses for the Tech Savvy Student

You're always on the computer, but unlike other people, it's not to chat with friends or to update your profile picture: it's to create applications or to learn more about the equipment itself. You've thought about going into information technology as a career, but wonder if there is anything else that you can do. You particularly like the idea of helping people. Knowing that you were using your innate skills to help others would infuse your life with extra meaning. Sound like you? Then you may want to consider technology-based healthcare training.

Someone like you who lives and breathes computers could, for instance, consider taking the following healthcare training: medical computing, ultrasound technician and radiation therapist.

Medical computing

Medical computing is a broad term that could refer to a wide range of health courses:

- medical data processing: e.g., making billing software so simple that it affords a team at a medical clinic more time to apply their skills learned in healthcare training to patient care, rather than leaving them to muddle through long and inefficient administrative tasks.

- medical software engineering: imagine creating software that makes the diagnostic imaging process even just a little bit more accurate so that graduates of ultrasound health courses can report back to patients and doctors with that much more confidence

- biomedical computing: in this health and technology field, practitioners learn how to apply the problem-solving, pattern-recognizing abilities of computers to improving human health

These are just some of the many health and technology opportunities computers present.

Ultrasound and computers

Students who enroll in health courses to learn how to become ultrasound technicians are asked to have certain social skills, as well as a high level of manual dexterity. But they should also be comfortable with the intersection of health and technology. They should be prepared to master new equipment over the course of their careers, and should be determined to get the most out of their existing technology.

Radiation therapist

Healthcare training in this sector prepares students for such jobs as X-ray technician or radiation technologist, operating the machines that dispense potentially life-saving radiation therapies to oncology patients. People who take these kinds of health courses must be as interested in machinery as they are in people. Health and technology are here two shared passions!

Health and technology have become inextricably linked. A doctor would have trouble correctly diagnosing and treating patients without the help of the graduates of healthcare training who know the ins-and-out of the equipment. We are dependent on ultrasound machines, computer programs, etc.! People with technology skills are needed in all industries, but especially in health care.

One way to find out more about health and technology careers is to phone up schools in your area to ask about career options. Good luck!

Health Sciences College for Career Changers

Are you already in the workforce, but looking for a change? Perhaps what you need is a new job, ideally with flexible working hours, a good hourly wage, and the possibility of advancement, both in terms of salary and status? A job where you can help others? For many mature students, a health sciences college becomes a launch pad to a rewarding second career.

In fact, it could even be argued that, for some of the professions that a health sciences program can lead to, such as X-ray technician or ultrasound technician, that maturity and life experience can be a major asset. After all, patients seeking diagnostic imaging tests can sometimes feel vulnerable, and worried about their health, their futures and, not to mention, their families. A steady, guiding hand - a good "test-side manner"- can be reassuring, even therapeutic, and a welcome presence in any clinic or emergency room.

X-ray tech as a second career choice

Graduates of health sciences college who go on to work as an X-ray technician (or radiologic technologist, as it is sometimes called) are equipped to perform certain diagnostic imaging tests on patients.

Graduates of this kind of program can expect to make anywhere from $30,000 to $75,000 a year (or an hourly wage of $14 to $32).

In health sciences college, aspiring X-ray technicians learn how to perform X-rays, but that is not all. The diagnostic imaging tests taught in health sciences program can include:

- CT scans: a test to detect, amongst other problems, tumors and hemorrhaging

- MRI scans: a test often used to image cancer in the body

- mammograms

Judging by the sensitive, stressful and intimate nature of some of these diagnostic imaging tests, it is not surprising that many schools of health science are eager to open their doors to mature students, who will have the people skills as well as the technical skills to shepherd understandably anxious patients through the diagnostic process.

Ultrasound technician

Many people associate the words "ultrasound" or "sonogram" with pregnancy. We've all seen ultrasound printouts of a family's first glimpse of their infant-to-be, with a charming outline of a foot, or of a silhouette that recalls Mommy or Daddy. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if many of the mature students enrolled in ultrasound studies at health sciences college actually spawned an interest in the profession by using the services of an ultrasound technician themselves. But, as schools of health science quickly make clear, ultrasound technology has many uses, including:

- emergency uses: some graduates go on to perform ultrasounds on patients in emergency

- veterinary uses: some graduates of this program program may go on to practice their trade with animals rather than humans. Ultrasound is used, for example, to assess injuries in horses and cattle.

Health sciences college can be an attractive option for mature students with experience in another field.

Visit Mohawk College for more information on a health sciences program.