When it comes to your medical career, it can be easy to use the traditional stepping stones to progress forward. This is no bad thing, as there’s a reason why it’s such a well-trodden path, but thanks to technology and a changing perspective of how jobs are done, training yourself from your laptop or PC can be one of the most powerful ways to transform your medical career and widen your horizons.
Here’s why:
Online courses are powerful
One of the best ways you can transform your medical career is through online courses.
Traditionally, one of the sternest barriers to entry into medical practice was the huge amount of time, money, and personal sacrifice it took to enroll and complete a university degree on campus. Just consider the basics. Yearly fees. Steep rent prices. The cost of living. This is before you consider the fact you can’t realistically hold down a full-time job while doing a university degree, severely limiting your earning power in the process.
Furthermore, the personal disruption of moving to a university town – especially if you have existing commitments – is unfeasible for many. This is especially true for older people looking to switch careers or younger people from underprivileged backgrounds.
This is why online courses can be so powerful. By enrolling in digital courses, such as online FNP programs, you can integrate study into your existing routine and lifestyle, rather than the other way around. This transforms your ability to fund your studies, maintain a healthy personal life, and pursue other skills while undertaking medical training.
This both radically improves your ability to partake (and complete) your course and diversifies the medical industry with people from different backgrounds and ways of thinking, which benefits everybody.
You can work from anywhere
While you will likely have to work in a specific location once you’re up and running in your medical career, the ability to train on your laptop means you can hone your skills from anywhere on the planet. It also opens the doors to you pursuing other work in the meantime, which will broaden your experience levels, mature you emotionally, and develop your abilities to work under pressure – all crucial attributes in healthcare and medical practice. This will also likely make you more employable, as anyone with a broader outlook and greater maturity is likely to do their job better.
The beauty of training from anywhere is that you could use this time to explore different cultures and ways of thinking. At its core, healthcare is as much about dealing with people as it is about health specifically. If you use the time spent training to become a student in different cultures and ways of thinking, meeting as many people as you can, then you will transform your ability to handle your patients. There’s no coincidence in the fact that a medical professional’s ability to comfort and understand their patients contributes greatly to their career success.
Information has never been cheaper
This is a big one. There has never been a more affordable age at which to learn and develop your skills. The rise of internet courses, video tutorials, professional consultants, and freely accessible web documents has democratized learning. Use this phenomenon to transform your career in healthcare by learning and incorporating new skills and ways of thinking. You can never suffer by educating yourself.
When it comes to education, it is tempting to imagine that your learning curve ends when you are skilled in your particular medical niche. While it is true that you should only learn medical skills from qualified professionals, this is hardly the full picture.
For instance, why not greatly improve your communication skills by learning them online and through books? Skyrocket your productivity by learning from online psychology experts, or widen your perspective as an individual by discovering philosophy and fresh ways of viewing the world. A lucrative skill would be to master another language, potentially allowing you to take your healthcare career abroad.
These skills make you more attractive to future employers and will increase your chances of being promoted and forming productive relationships with your colleagues and clients.
Your career horizons are infinitely wider
By using the power of your laptop, you don’t have to limit your career horizons to the town or city you live in. Even if you are not actively searching for a new position, keep tabs on exciting opportunities elsewhere – whether at the other end of town, across the country, or on the other side of the world. Your horizons are only determined by your ability to communicate, the value of your skills, and how far you are willing to move.
This is particularly useful if you’re trying to land your first healthcare role and struggling to find any vacancies nearby or an experienced professional who is disillusioned in your current role.
Don’t give up the day job
This coincides with the benefit of online courses – namely that you don’t have to compromise your life in order to pursue medical training. By maintaining your independence, you can continue to hold down a day job alongside your studies.
This will (hopefully) alleviate your financial worries, allowing you to fully focus on what’s really important – which is your training. It will also maintain all-important morale during a time of intense dedication and workload. By maintaining your day job, you keep your feet in the real world, expand your social and professional circles and, ultimately, create a safety net in case you have a change of heart and no longer wish to pursue a medical career.
This mentality doesn’t just work for beginners, though. If you are an established and experienced medical professional looking for a change of pace or you just want to expand your horizons, you can use this same ethos by becoming a freelance consultant, for instance.
By using your laptop to establish this career change, you can maintain your income stream while living life on your terms, and giving you more time to expand your skillset in other directions.
Work to your timetable
By using your laptop to educate yourself, you can manage your time more effectively and actually give yourself more time to dedicate to training. This might sound counterintuitive, but when you enroll in an online course or consume other online resources, you can do so at a speed and level that suits you. There’s no waiting around for your classmates to catch up, commuting time, or small talk as the lecturer warms the seminar group up. You can maximize your time and use any leftover to either learn more or to earn money in your day job.
Think of your medical education as an investment. By making the best use of your time investment, you can free up the credit (in this case, your free time) to spend on more productive endeavors, whether it is working, learning, or socializing. This prevents the feeling that you are tied down and have everything invested in a costly and time-consuming degree. You maintain your freedom while learning as much as you can.
Become an expert at promoting yourself
While this is not applicable to all medical careers, there is an increasing marketing trend of self-promotion and personal branding. Essentially, you become your own business. With the domination of social media and the gig economy, it is wise to analyze how you can make the most of this new culture.
Online, there is an infinite number of resources that teach the skills behind effective self-promotion and personal branding. It would be wise to understand how best to present yourself, not just online but to your colleagues too. Once those around you fully understand what your skills are, teamwork and productivity will increase, and you may find you enjoy your role more, as those around you offer you tasks you excel at.
One way you could apply this to your healthcare career is by building your personal brand to promote you as an expert in your particular field. You could write for relevant journals, newspapers, start a podcast, the list is endless. Now, this is why it isn’t applicable to every stage of your career. This example is only to be considered if you actually are an expert in your field. Furthermore, you might struggle to manage this if you are in full-time employment or working for an organization that does not want you to represent their brand in this manner.
There are no limits to the amount you can learn
This is the beauty of democratized learning on your laptop. As long as you have the time and enough money to sustain yourself, there is no limit to the amount you can learn or to the extent that you can increase your skillset. This is incredibly exciting because it can potentially expand your horizons massively and allow you to pursue a new range of opportunities.
If you want to change career direction or solidify a particular skill, you can enroll in an online course or find a relevant consultant to help guide you. As the barriers of entry to learning break down more and more, your career has the potential to soar if you are willing to invest in yourself.
