What is a Health Career?

Health Careers range very broadly from those that involve “hands-on” care of individual patients to those that involve examining health and health care practices from a wider, population-level perspective.

Identifying your career goal can be challenging, but consider the questions below to help guide your decisions:

What type of environment do I see myself working in? Will I be helping people by giving stitches OR counseling them about dietary choices OR analyzing data sets to identify trends in disease incidence?
What role would I like to play as a member of a healthcare team?
What are my biggest strengths? What career would best enable me to use these traits and talents?

Finally, start shadowing. This is the best way to determine whether a particular career is a good fit for you.

See the list below of the types of health careers you might pursue following your time at SLU.

“Hands-on” Healthcare

Registered Nurse
Nurse Practitioner Physician (MD or DO)
Physician’s Assistant
Physical Therapist
Chiropractor
Athletic Trainer
Occupational Therapist
Dentist
Optometrist
Veterinarian
Pharmacist
Speech Pathologist
Speech and Language Therapist

Counseling & Education

Registered Dietitian
Health Educator
Marriage and Family Therapist
Mental Health Counselor Clinical Social Worker
Genetic Counselor
Certified Diabetes Educator

Management & Analysis

Healthcare Administration
Clinical Trial Management
Occupational Health & Safety Analyst
Epidemiology
Public Health