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Your First Step Into The Healthcare Field

15 December 2015 by Julia Gregory

Once you've decided to look at a career in healthcare, there are a number of directions you can take. One of the criteria to use in selecting that first job is the level of direct patient care you wish to have. There are healthcare jobs that give you contact with patients throughout your day, and other roles where you never see a patient. Here are three jobs that have varying degrees of patient contact to get you started in your search for the right career step.

Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA)

This role works directly with patients and other healthcare providers. As a nursing assistant, you can work in hospitals, clinics, doctor's offices, nursing homes and rehabilitation centers. You'll have a variety of responsibilities to assist patients in these settings. Some of these duties include:

• assisting people with daily activities such as bathing, dressing and eating
• taking routine vital signs, such as blood pressure and temperature
• updating the patient's medical records
• helping nurses and doctors with patient procedures, such as changing surgical bandages

This is a role to consider if you think you'd like direct contact with people who need medical attention.

Medical Assistant

This role gives you different contact with patients, outside of delivering clinical care. If you're uncomfortable with some of the duties as a nursing assistant, but enjoy working with people, this may be your preferred role. You can work in many of the same places as the nursing assistant, but your duties will include:

• helping patients schedule appointments
• assisting people as they check in for their appointments
• updating and filing medical records
• helping patients with insurance questions

In some facilities, you'll have limited clinical duties which may include:

• taking vital signs before an exam, such as weight, temperature and blood pressure
• drawing blood for routine laboratory analysis
• performing an electrocardiogram to show heart function

Medical Coding Specialist

If direct patient care is unappealing to you, this is a role that gives you exposure to the healthcare field without seeing patients. This job maintains patient medical records with the current information about their tests and treatment. This job is important because many healthcare providers will review the patient's records, so the information must be current and accurate. This role may be done in a medical facility, but many people perform this role while working at home. Some of your responsibilities include:

• entering diagnostic test results into the patient records
• updating medical records with notes from doctors and nurses
• checking that the coding of diagnosis and treatment conforms to the industry standards

You won't have contact with patients in this role, but you'll learn about how healthcare is delivered through the information with which you'll have contact regularly. For more information about health care jobs, visit SOS Healthcare Staffing.

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