9 answers
9
Questions
Updated
1023 views
Healthcare workers who genuinely love their jobs: what made you choose your career, and what keeps you from burning out? If you were talking to a high school student interested in healthcare, what advice would you give?
I'm in high school, so I still have options. I really don't want to go the wrong way with my career. Any advice?
Login to comment
9 answers
Updated
Vianne’s Answer
For me, mental health has always been important. I love hearing people's stories and learning what shapes them. Working in mental health showed me how much just being there, listening, and helping someone find support can change things. I've seen clients come in feeling lost and leave with a plan, resources, and a bit more hope. These moments remind me why I chose this path. To avoid burnout, I remember that I can't fix every problem, but I can still make a difference in someone's day. If I were advising a high school student interested in healthcare, I'd tell them to stay curious, explore different areas, and work on empathy and communication skills. Healthcare involves science, but it's also about connecting with people, and these skills are incredibly valuable in any healthcare career.
Updated
Adaobi Maryann’s Answer
Hi, Emerson Nikky,
I hope you're doing well.
I have come to realize is that we all live for the purpose of service. There are many ways to serve humanity, but it becomes easier to choose a path when you discover what genuinely moves you and what you can do selflessly.
What makes healthcare unique is that it goes beyond providing a service. It gives you the opportunity to improve and even save lives.
A few days ago, I watched a video of a young boy who had a large growth on his back. The condition affected the way he walked, spoke, turned his neck, and interacted with others. After undergoing surgery, his posture improved, and he was able to speak and move much more freely. Witnessing that transformation was remarkable.
Moments like these remind me that healthcare is more than a profession; it's a calling. Behind every successful treatment is a healthcare professional who is passionate enough to help someone regain hope, dignity, and a better quality of life.
Healthcare offers many career paths, opportunities for growth, and rewarding benefits. However, my personal reason for choosing this field goes beyond those things. What drives me is the genuine passion to help people move from pain, illness, and uncertainty to a place of healing, hope, and improved well-being.
If I were advising a high school student, I would say: don't choose healthcare solely because of the income or job security. Choose it because you care about people, are willing to keep learning, and find fulfillment in making a positive difference in someone's life. When passion and purpose guide your decision, the challenges become easier to navigate, and the work becomes much more meaningful.
Thank you.
I hope you're doing well.
I have come to realize is that we all live for the purpose of service. There are many ways to serve humanity, but it becomes easier to choose a path when you discover what genuinely moves you and what you can do selflessly.
What makes healthcare unique is that it goes beyond providing a service. It gives you the opportunity to improve and even save lives.
A few days ago, I watched a video of a young boy who had a large growth on his back. The condition affected the way he walked, spoke, turned his neck, and interacted with others. After undergoing surgery, his posture improved, and he was able to speak and move much more freely. Witnessing that transformation was remarkable.
Moments like these remind me that healthcare is more than a profession; it's a calling. Behind every successful treatment is a healthcare professional who is passionate enough to help someone regain hope, dignity, and a better quality of life.
Healthcare offers many career paths, opportunities for growth, and rewarding benefits. However, my personal reason for choosing this field goes beyond those things. What drives me is the genuine passion to help people move from pain, illness, and uncertainty to a place of healing, hope, and improved well-being.
If I were advising a high school student, I would say: don't choose healthcare solely because of the income or job security. Choose it because you care about people, are willing to keep learning, and find fulfillment in making a positive difference in someone's life. When passion and purpose guide your decision, the challenges become easier to navigate, and the work becomes much more meaningful.
Thank you.
I appreciate this, thank you for the advice.
Emerson Nikky
Updated
Kathleen’s Answer
Hello! Great questions. I will try to address both of them here. First of all, healthcare is a large, varied, challenging, and greatly rewarding field. I do not presume you mean physician, or nurse, or anything specific at this point. So my advice is to think about what you love to do, what ages of people do you prefer to be around ( or not...it makes a difference). What subjects are your favorites and most interesting to you? Don't worry about making a "wrong" choice, most folks encounter detours along the way as they learn and grow and it's all valuable. Personally, I loved science, experimenting, working with my hands and solving puzzles. I'm an introvert, so a lot of " people time and interaction" is draining. Clinical laboratory science seemed like a good fit, and it was! I loved it from the start, and the day one of the oncologists I worked with asked my advice, thanked me, and said that without the lab doctors are only guessing, I knew I was in the right field. These days automation makes some folks thinks it's just pushing buttons and while the instruments are fantastic, it still takes knowledge and training and maintaining them to ensure they're giving correct and reasonable results. So, take a personal inventory of your talents, abilities, and passions, consider what different fields require and offer and what kind of work-life balance you need and want and go boldly into the great big world!
Best to you!
Kathie
Best to you!
Kathie
Thanks so much! I'll be using this!
Emerson Nikky
Updated
Robert’s Answer
Healthcare wasn’t my first choice. In fact, in high school I was fully set on studying Music Education. After hearing stories from a family member who was a Corpsman, that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to be “Doc”. For me, I joined the Navy to take care of Marines. I told my recruiter that I wouldn’t sign a contract if I couldn’t. All or nothing.
Flash forward two years and someone close to me experienced a complex/traumatic birthing experience in a local hospital. Hearing how much it impacted them, that made me rethink stopping at just being a Corpsman and in popped the idea of being something more in medicine.
Five years later, here I am. Still serving actively as a Corpsman, while studying nursing (just started junior year) it’s been quite the journey. Everyday is a new opportunity to learn something from providers, mentors, and peers.
Find your “Why”
If you’re choosing healthcare for monetary reasons, the novelty will wear off quick and you will get burnt out because your heart’s not in it. Does it make you happy to help people? That’s one of my Whys. It makes me so happy to see patients come in hurt, not knowing where to go and then leaving heard, validated, understood, and concerns addressed.
To avoid burnout
Please make sure you allow yourself to get the appropriate amount of sleep (7-9hrs for adults)! Prioritizing self care and ensuring that you take breaks is paramount. Having scheduled times for you to just check out and do hobbies is a great way to stay afloat. Spend time with those you love most and put your effort into things that matter to you.
If I could advise a high school student, I would say that this decision does not have to be made tonight. You have time to find where you belong. You don’t have to know what you wanna do when you grow up the moment you turn 18. I’d recommend to explore different career paths. Whether it be more of a staff medsurg nurse position and fostering proper patient/nurse relationships, serving in a more outpatient ER/urgent care setting as a tech, drawing blood as a phlebotomist, assisting public health initiatives, or even an informatics role. I would say to keep an open mind.
You aren’t stuck
Even if you choose to do nursing, PA, MD/DO,etc. you aren’t just locked into that one job. Each of those career paths have different specialties/fellowships for further education that enable you to specialize in a category of that career field such as nurse practitioner, nurse educator. There are an plethora of fellowships for PAs like orthopedics, OR, and ER fellowships. Doctors specialize in things like Family medicine, anesthesiology, internal medicine, or surgeon.
Medicine is a fantastic world to work in. I wish you the best of luck!
Flash forward two years and someone close to me experienced a complex/traumatic birthing experience in a local hospital. Hearing how much it impacted them, that made me rethink stopping at just being a Corpsman and in popped the idea of being something more in medicine.
Five years later, here I am. Still serving actively as a Corpsman, while studying nursing (just started junior year) it’s been quite the journey. Everyday is a new opportunity to learn something from providers, mentors, and peers.
Find your “Why”
If you’re choosing healthcare for monetary reasons, the novelty will wear off quick and you will get burnt out because your heart’s not in it. Does it make you happy to help people? That’s one of my Whys. It makes me so happy to see patients come in hurt, not knowing where to go and then leaving heard, validated, understood, and concerns addressed.
To avoid burnout
Please make sure you allow yourself to get the appropriate amount of sleep (7-9hrs for adults)! Prioritizing self care and ensuring that you take breaks is paramount. Having scheduled times for you to just check out and do hobbies is a great way to stay afloat. Spend time with those you love most and put your effort into things that matter to you.
If I could advise a high school student, I would say that this decision does not have to be made tonight. You have time to find where you belong. You don’t have to know what you wanna do when you grow up the moment you turn 18. I’d recommend to explore different career paths. Whether it be more of a staff medsurg nurse position and fostering proper patient/nurse relationships, serving in a more outpatient ER/urgent care setting as a tech, drawing blood as a phlebotomist, assisting public health initiatives, or even an informatics role. I would say to keep an open mind.
You aren’t stuck
Even if you choose to do nursing, PA, MD/DO,etc. you aren’t just locked into that one job. Each of those career paths have different specialties/fellowships for further education that enable you to specialize in a category of that career field such as nurse practitioner, nurse educator. There are an plethora of fellowships for PAs like orthopedics, OR, and ER fellowships. Doctors specialize in things like Family medicine, anesthesiology, internal medicine, or surgeon.
Medicine is a fantastic world to work in. I wish you the best of luck!
Updated
Rita’s Answer
I chose the medical field for different reasons. First, I wanted to help people. Second, I get easily bored so I wanted something that would keep me interested. I like puzzles so I felt the medical profession is like being a detective and solving a problem. The job is steady--you will always have a job.
I struggled with several aspects of medicine and mostly, it's because of my personality. I'm a people pleaser. I want everyone to be happy which is unrealistic. I opened my own office so although I had a full schedule, I had so many patients asking to be squeezed in. I would do that and then I felt like I was behind and rushed. That would make some patients upset. I think you need to set boundaries. One doctor told me that I let the patients train me instead of training the patient. Some patients would come in with a list of problems they had. If you only have 15 minutes, it's hard to get through everything. I also like to get my work done quickly. I would finish my notes by the time I left the exam room. If it did not, it would create anxiety. I hate having a list of things to do. Because of this, I would wake up early and eat breakfast while I refilled medicine, reviewed labs, and answered patient questions. Between patients, you will continue to do the refills, answer questions, and review documents (specialists' notes, radiology reports, etc).
I recommend everyone interested in the medical field work as a medical scribe. I did not know what I was getting myself into. If you work as a scribe, you are actually in the room so you can learn who doctors deal with patients. I thought everyone was "normal" but you will be exposed to several different personalities (difficult, demanding) and you will need to learn how to deal with these personalities and not take it personally. When a patient was upset, I would be upset and could not sleep. (This is the people pleaser part of me that was not so good). Being a scribe, you will learn the language of medicine. You can see the different disease states and when you go to medical school, it will be easier. I challenge you to start work when the doctor starts work and leave when the doctor leaves because if you want to be a doctor, you will need to learn this. You will need to tell your friends/family that you are behind and will be late for dinner or just cancel.
There have been several articles about doctors retiring early. I am one of them. It's a stressful and demanding job. There are several great aspects. You build relationships with patients and they are like friends. However, because they are like friends, they feel like they can call you at anytime to ask you medical advice. This is where you need to create boundaries. It's not easy. Even with family, they will be calling you a lot and asking for medical advice.
Most doctors would not have their kids go into the field of medicine. To understand this, I think you need to work/volunteer at a doctor's office to see what they do. The volunteer work that you do in the hospital does not prepare you for what becoming a doctor will entail.
I struggled with several aspects of medicine and mostly, it's because of my personality. I'm a people pleaser. I want everyone to be happy which is unrealistic. I opened my own office so although I had a full schedule, I had so many patients asking to be squeezed in. I would do that and then I felt like I was behind and rushed. That would make some patients upset. I think you need to set boundaries. One doctor told me that I let the patients train me instead of training the patient. Some patients would come in with a list of problems they had. If you only have 15 minutes, it's hard to get through everything. I also like to get my work done quickly. I would finish my notes by the time I left the exam room. If it did not, it would create anxiety. I hate having a list of things to do. Because of this, I would wake up early and eat breakfast while I refilled medicine, reviewed labs, and answered patient questions. Between patients, you will continue to do the refills, answer questions, and review documents (specialists' notes, radiology reports, etc).
I recommend everyone interested in the medical field work as a medical scribe. I did not know what I was getting myself into. If you work as a scribe, you are actually in the room so you can learn who doctors deal with patients. I thought everyone was "normal" but you will be exposed to several different personalities (difficult, demanding) and you will need to learn how to deal with these personalities and not take it personally. When a patient was upset, I would be upset and could not sleep. (This is the people pleaser part of me that was not so good). Being a scribe, you will learn the language of medicine. You can see the different disease states and when you go to medical school, it will be easier. I challenge you to start work when the doctor starts work and leave when the doctor leaves because if you want to be a doctor, you will need to learn this. You will need to tell your friends/family that you are behind and will be late for dinner or just cancel.
There have been several articles about doctors retiring early. I am one of them. It's a stressful and demanding job. There are several great aspects. You build relationships with patients and they are like friends. However, because they are like friends, they feel like they can call you at anytime to ask you medical advice. This is where you need to create boundaries. It's not easy. Even with family, they will be calling you a lot and asking for medical advice.
Most doctors would not have their kids go into the field of medicine. To understand this, I think you need to work/volunteer at a doctor's office to see what they do. The volunteer work that you do in the hospital does not prepare you for what becoming a doctor will entail.
Thank you so much for sharing!
Emerson Nikky
Updated
James’s Answer
The more you learn, the more you understand about the world and your place in it. I think having a variety of interests makes you better at most any profession. In healthcare professions one must learn throughout one's life, which I find wonderful. You not only need to learn facts, but you need to learn how to be on a team, how to lead - and how to follow, and how to communicate to people of a wide variety of backgrounds.
I recommend that you go to college and take all the core requirements for a healthcare career, but also take classes that just sound interesting. As a biology major who ultimately became a physician, I enjoyed classes in music, theater, anthropology, forestry... I also participated in intramural sports and singing groups that made my time a lot of fun.
Burnout is all too common, and making sure one sets limits that protect valuable time for sleep, exercise, hobbies, friends, and family is important.
As you explore different classes and experiences, also find time to talk to different professionals about what they like and don't like about their careers. Shadow them if you can to see first-hand what it is like. You should get a feeling that something seems right to you. But also know that it is common, and fine, to deviate from the path you first take. I know an excellent physician who became a caterer after many years, and is quite happy to have done both!
I recommend that you go to college and take all the core requirements for a healthcare career, but also take classes that just sound interesting. As a biology major who ultimately became a physician, I enjoyed classes in music, theater, anthropology, forestry... I also participated in intramural sports and singing groups that made my time a lot of fun.
Burnout is all too common, and making sure one sets limits that protect valuable time for sleep, exercise, hobbies, friends, and family is important.
As you explore different classes and experiences, also find time to talk to different professionals about what they like and don't like about their careers. Shadow them if you can to see first-hand what it is like. You should get a feeling that something seems right to you. But also know that it is common, and fine, to deviate from the path you first take. I know an excellent physician who became a caterer after many years, and is quite happy to have done both!
Thank you!
Emerson Nikky
Updated
Victor’s Answer
I’m sharing my experience because I’ve been in the world of case management since my first job after community college. It started as a part-time job to pay the rent, but it quickly became important to me. I began as a marketing assistant with Habitat for Humanity, where our first project was raising funds for a homeless family. My role was to create a video telling their story, which was watched 100 times and helped the family get a home. That success felt amazing, knowing I helped prevent a family from becoming homeless.
Later, I finished my degree in Economics but kept volunteering at church, helping feed the homeless and teaching tech to the youth. Helping others gave me a sense of purpose. Now, I’m a Long Term Health Coordinator, back in the field I started in. It can be tough, but my mom always says, "nothing is perfect in life," and she’s right. What matters is how we handle things. I take mini-breaks, listen to music, visit random cafes for fresh coffee, and hit the gym for an hour. These activities are just for me.
Remember to focus on the wins and all the "thank yous."
Later, I finished my degree in Economics but kept volunteering at church, helping feed the homeless and teaching tech to the youth. Helping others gave me a sense of purpose. Now, I’m a Long Term Health Coordinator, back in the field I started in. It can be tough, but my mom always says, "nothing is perfect in life," and she’s right. What matters is how we handle things. I take mini-breaks, listen to music, visit random cafes for fresh coffee, and hit the gym for an hour. These activities are just for me.
Remember to focus on the wins and all the "thank yous."
Updated
Bernadette’s Answer
I got into healthcare because if I was going to spend 8-10 hours a day doing something, I wanted it to be something I love and makes me feel good. Burnout is something that does happen with healthcare or even any other career but if you learn to organize yourself and take it day by day, make sure you take time for yourself, and mental health days are a must you will be okay. At the end of the day, try to pick something you love and the rest will fall into place! Good luck!
Updated
Ledier’s Answer
Working in healthcare, I chose this field to truly make a difference in people's lives. It allows me to help others during tough times and offers a chance for ongoing learning and growth. To avoid burnout, it's important to remember why you started, set healthy boundaries, take care of yourself, and find a specialty that matches your interests and strengths. While no job in healthcare is without challenges, having a clear purpose and a balanced life really helps.