Special Procedures Technologists

If you are interested in entering the health care field, you can begin your involvement while still in high school. Most hospitals, nursing homes, mental health centers, and other treatment facilities have volunteer programs that allow you to explore the health care environment and gain insight into medicine and patient care. You may be able to get a paid part-time or summer position working as a nurse's aide or home health care helper. In addition to these possibilities, ask your school counselor or a science teacher to help you arrange for a special procedures technologist to give a career talk to interested students. You may also be able to meet a special procedures technologist by contacting a local hospital or imaging center and asking for an information interview with this person. Another possibility is to ask if you can spend part of a day "shadowing" the individual in the workplace.