Do you consider yourself to be a techie? If you are interested in working with technology, you’ve got a wide range of potential health care career paths worth exploring! In this article, we highlight three health care careers that are perfect for the technology enthusiasts out there.
Medical illustrator/animator
A medical illustrator/animator is a professional artist with training in medicine, science, communication and media technology. These specialists create imagery and animation that advances science knowledge and promotes the public’s health literacy. The work of medical illustrators must be accurate and solve demanding communication challenges. After all, the trained and untrained eye both need to understand what they’re viewing. Some of these illustrators specialize in a particular medium, such as:
- Cellular/mechanism of action animation
- Surgical/medical device illustration
- Medical-legal exhibits/mechanism of injury animation
- Medical app design/health gaming
- Augmented and virtual reality simulation
If you’re interested in going into illustration, you’ll want to invest in design software like Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to create media. Being able to test out and practice with this software will give you a chance to refine your skills and artistic abilities.
Nuclear medicine technologist
Nuclear medicine technologists evaluate how the body functions in order to help in the diagnosis and treatment of patients. Nuclear medicine combines imaging, patient care, chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer technology and medicine. It’s basically the dream career for any lover of science and tech!
These technologists’ responsibilities include:
- Administering radio-pharmaceuticals and medications for patient imaging and therapeutic procedures
- Monitoring patients’ physical conditions during the course of procedures
- Processing data and enhancing digital images using advanced computer technology
- Evaluating images to determine the technical quality and calibration of instrumentation
- Evaluating new protocols
If you feel confident that you want to work in this field, start by learning more about operating the CT and MRI machines that play a large role in nuclear medicine technologists’ work.
Audiologist
Doctors of audiology, commonly known as audiologists, identify, rehabilitate and prevent issues for those with hearing and balance disorders. As communication professionals, they commonly use technology such as audiometers. They also suggest different types of specialized hearing assistive technology, like frequency modulation systems, infrared systems, induction loop systems, one-to-one communications and cochlear implants.
If you’re curious about audiology, research some of the technology that these health care professionals recommend to patients, like hearing aids, and explore the measurement tools that help them do their work, such as otoscopes and tympanometers.
As our society continues to prioritize making diagnoses more exact and treatment more effective, technology’s role in health care will continue to grow. Those who have interest in working directly with tech can find jobs that may include more time working with software or maybe even developing new technologies themselves! Whatever health care path you choose, it’s likely that you’ll regularly use technology to help your patients live better lives.