<p>Ok, you are right, she had 5 years of courses and is doing rotations. In any case, longer than OP said she was interested in.</p>
<p>Med Tech= Medical Technologist= obsolete</p>
<p>Now called Medical Laboratory Scientist. 4 year degree required.
Good allied health profession, just not possible in one year.</p>
<p>A number of colleges offer 2 year programs to be Occupational Therapy Assistants or Physical Therapy Assistants. A student might combine that type of degree with the coursework they would need in the future to get into a master’s program.</p>
<p>With some health care fields, people have a hope of finding an employer who will then subsidize additional part-time education to advance in their field.</p>
<p>My understanding is that most RNs start out doing shift work, but then as they get more experience and seniority, they have a better chance of getting jobs with more regular hours. After building up seniority, my sister became an operating room RN because they mainly work the day shift on weekdays. My other sister is a RN with seniority who does counseling/referral work mainly during the day shift.</p>
<p>^^^^There are always exceptions, but in general that seems to be the case.</p>
<p>Consider going abroad - medicine is 5-6 years in the UK and in Australia, though you probably won’t qualify for financial assistance.</p>
<p>RE post 23. A student completing a two year COTA (OT assistant) or PT assistant program would first need to complete a bachelors degree…then they could apply to a masters program. I don’t know of ANY masters level OT program that admits folks with associates degrees only.</p>
<p>Yes, Thumper, what I meant to say is that you get the associates degree, could start working, and then take junior and senior level bachelors courses that are good preparation for applying to the master’s program. </p>
<p>Because there is so little financial aid for grad/professional school, it is hard to go full-time, and is even hard to go part-time without employer assistance.</p>
<p>Hospital/health care administrator. Nursing home director, etc. Eventually you’ll need an MHA, but you can work right out of college. </p>
<p>BIG money if you are good at it.</p>
<p>What about medical sales? Biotech, Pharma, Medical Device.</p>
<p>My wife is a hospice nurse with two-year RN. Works weekdays, reasonable hours (and she sets her own daily schedule). On-call one weekend a month (but usually only gets called one of those days. Gets paid plenty of overtime for doing paperwork. Makes way more money than I would have imagined, more actually than the average nurse practitioner in our town, and about the same as our family doc. </p>
<p>She loves hospice work. Others don’t, or at least think they wouldn’t, which puts her in great demand.</p>
<p>^^^^^I followed a hospice nurse when I was in nursing school in community health class. It seemed like a great job for the right person. Lots of flexibility in terms of being able to drop off kids/pick them up from school, not as physically demanding as hospital work, etc. This nurse did do the hospital nursing gig for awhile before getting this job.</p>
<p>I know a woman who has a great career as a dental supply sales representative, with only a dental hygenist degree and a few years experience as a hygenist and some other prior experience in sales. I think it has more to do with her personality.</p>
<p>My bad. In responding to OP I was encouraging her to continue on the MD path (using dermatology as an example) if she truly wanted to be a doctor, rather than abandoning the idea now because she is concerned about how she would balance it with family life. I didn’t read the line where she said she didn’t want to spend more than 4 years at college.
So, never mind.</p>
<p>Also, OT requires a Master’s degree, but there are some 5 year programs. You probably have to apply to these directly as a freshman in order to get all the courses done?</p>
<p>I am going to guess that the direct admit OT five year programs are going the way of the dinosaur. Plus…those were five years PLUS a minimum of 24 weeks of unpaid rotations after coursework was completed.</p>
<p>Pharmacy Technician, Physical Therapy Assistant, And Nursing.</p>
<p>There are a number of certificate programs, 2 year programs for technicians, tht one can tuck into a 4 year degree if a student goes to a school that offers them and if that school allows students into those programs. I’ve recommended to kids who have graduated from college and could not find work, to take some certificate program courses, and get into such fields. For those kids, it would not have been possible to have gotten their degree and taken such courses since their schools did not offer them. It’s not all that easy to get into a lot of these programs either. Nursing, for instance, at even some auto admit school has it own set of requirements and getting accepted to those programs is competitive.</p>
<p>One option many nurses take is to get the Associates Degree in nursing, take the RN licensing exam, begin working as a nurse, then immediately starting a BSN bridge program part time.</p>
<p>Yes, that is an important point. Many nursing programs are very competitive for entry, either as direct entry from high school, or as an entry into a nursing major after 2 years of college. It is always best, if possible, to do a direct entry program, instead of taking your chances of being admitted after 2 years. Often, nursing is one of the most difficult majors for admission at many colleges. At community colleges, they usually have open admission policies for most majors, but competition for the nursing spots. That same competition may also apply for some of the other health care majors.</p>
<p>Great planning OP! I am not a fan of the “lean in” theory. I “leaned in” for many years and nearly lost my family. You cannot convince me that travelling, late nights, nannies and working weekends is good for raising kids. I’m a huge proponent of flexible career planning.</p>