Hi everyone! So I just turned 24 and have commitment issues..yes I've struggled with being able to stick to what I want to go to school for. Its the school loan that terrifies me and I just want to be sure what I invest my money in. I completed a certificate after highschool for medical administrative assistant and did some volunteer work at hospital nearby that gave me a lot of experience and shadowing opportunities. I got to work in an outpatient hospital setting, then also for the past year and a half pretty much administered a clinic on my own with nurses, therapist, dentist as my manager dropped by once a month to check on "stuff". So I know my passion is in the healthcare field and everytime I'm around healthcare professionals or clinics, especially hospitals I'm always in awe. For the longest I wanted to do social work but so many stories and salary really made me seek other careers..so I started to do research and discovered a professor who recommended the health information management field, which is interesting cause its not as general as the health administrator one you focus a little more in medical records department, and I have to take a & p, pharmacology,med term, etc cause they do diagnoses codes etc and the pay is supposed to be good but then I hear their getting outsourced cause of overseas and the new paperless stuff would change the career but others say make it more demanding. I also started to look into the human resources field and I've had people tell me they think that would be a good fit for me. I like how its a little more flexible as far as more options in the job, and I get to help implement and help train, or help people with concern, but there's so much more variety, my only concern is human resources wouldn't always mean working in a healthcare setting which is where my heart is at. Anythoughts? I live in chicago area. Just want to make sure I make a wise choice with something I would love and invest in, I have now started a new job part time to focus on school fulltime since now its the time to do so. I'm still working for a big non profit hospital organization, so I'm still making sure I'm gaining that administrative experience. Thanks for reading!!

Anyone? :/

I'm not really sure what your educational background is, but if you don't have advance training past a bachelor's degree, I would guess working in HR is probably not the easiest route for you. Most jobs require at least a B.A. in some related field, unless you're willing to work for not much more than minimum wage. Plus, with the market now, a lot of jobs also require experience, even for close to entry level positions.

Thanks for the reply! So what I'm trying to figure out is which of these would be best for me to pursue a bachelors in, I'm currently taking my general ed classes, and I have a certificate in medical administration which has given me the opportunity to be able to obtain the past jobs I've had. Thanks again!!

If working in the medical field is what you really want to do, would it be possible to major in something in that field, and just take HR-related classes as electives? That would give you a more broad range of educational classes so perhaps you would be able to go either direction should you choose to do so.

I would definitely pursue the healthcare field if I were you. It's such a hot field to be in coz there are lots of jobs out there!

I'm a healthcare IT consultant. I had no prior healthcare knowledge, background, or degree. I'm a programmer so really I just had to learn the system. As you said most hospitals (and even clinics) are moving away from paper medical records and putting in an EMR system. This is a huge and good project to be involved in! I won't lie, there's a lot of hard work involved and you have to be certified, but it keeps you committed and you learn a lot. At least it kept me committed until we got thru the implementation phase. Once that finished, I moved to a new hospital still doing the same thing and went thru that implementation too. Then I decided to go into consulting doing the exact same thing only paid better. Plus I get to work from home (this isn't very common among all consultants but because of the nature of my work, I can do it).

There are lots of areas you can get involved in with the project if you chose to do it. Or if you don't but you feel like you've got the expertise, you can get into that role as well (they're called Subject Matter Experts). The hottest jobs right now are in the area of 'build analysts'.

Anyway, I definitely think it's a good field to be in. I've been doing this for 7 years now and I love it!

Here's a sample of some of the jobs out there related to this: http://www.indeed.com/q-Epic-Build-Analyst-jobs.html

Good luck!

Hi :) This is going to be a long one.

I'm the same age as you and have some HR experience.
I've been working in HR for two years, first as a recruiter and now as a manager. While I do inform people about their benefits and healthcare, it really has nothing much to do with the healthcare field at all. For the most part, I've found HR to be demanding, certainly needing a BA and now I'm after a master's because it does need extensive formal training if you want to keep climbing the ladder. There is also lots of legal knowledge required, and in order to train and inform others about their livelihood (their jobs and healthcare), you need to know these things inside out, and the be able to understand the legal.
HR is generally consistent at most companies (including the healthcare field), you can basically do it anywhere. I strongly recommend you start with taking some classes, and trying an HR Assistant position.
I started working in HR without any formal training and I was severely confused, and did lots of reading, communicating with other HR professionals, and asked lots of questions. I do not recommend jumping in like I did, unless you like that uneasy feeling of not knowing what you're doing for about 6 months!

Overall, I have found HR to be very rewarding, especially when it comes to hiring and training. Administering healthcare has it's satisfaction as well. I'm always busy, challenged, and I'm an integral part of the company's progress. I sometimes have to plan the firing of an employee I helped develop, and that has to be done legally too. There are also complicated employees, etc. I'm still learning a lot, but so far so good. However, there is pressure and some tough decision making.

I recommend it if you are ready to work very very hard (like any job), put in lots of independent reading, dedicated to not making mistakes, always ready to move and change with the company, and can handle sensitive situations while being 'business focused'. I don't recommend it if you want to help people or if you enjoy working in the healthcare field, because you are there to help the business overall and really the healthcare part is on the benefits end, not too many medical details.

It seems to me that you might really enjoy a career in healthcare. Take a look at the healthcare programs offered by California College San Diego. Reading California College San Diego student reviews will offer you a student’s perspective.