Entering into the health care field with no prior education or experience

[Lariz]

If this is in the wrong place I apologize in advanced.

Over the last few years I have been interested in entering the health care field as a tech at a hospital and was wondering what would be the best way to go about doing it. I heard that most people get an EMT-B certification in order to become and ER tech and others get a CNA to become a nursing assistant. These courses are short and inexpensive which make them ideal for me.

The problem I have is that I don't generally want to do patient care(cleaning, changing, washing patients) and am more interested in the technical work such as EKG, Phlebotomy, surgery tech, X-Ray, taking vitals, IV placement, etc. What would be the best route to start with if I wanted this type of job. I notice most hospitals around my area need a lot of nurses and CNA's, but not many techs. Are jobs harder to get in these fields or do they just not advertise for them outside of the hospital?

I didn't see a tech forum for entry level people looking to get into the tech field so I decided to post it here. I may see this job as a step to get into something more career related such as surgical tech or even nursing. But for now I'm just looking to get my foot in the door.

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[FCMike11]

If this is in the wrong place I apologize in advanced.

Over the last few years I have been interested in entering the health care field as a tech at a hospital and was wondering what would be the best way to go about doing it. I heard that most people get an EMT-B certification in order to become and ER tech and others get a CNA to become a nursing assistant. These courses are short and inexpensive which make them ideal for me.

The problem I have is that I don't generally want to do patient care(cleaning, changing, washing patients) and am more interested in the technical work such as EKG, Phlebotomy, surgery tech, X-Ray, taking vitals, IV placement, etc. What would be the best route to start with if I wanted this type of job. I notice most hospitals around my area need a lot of nurses and CNA's, but not many techs. Are jobs harder to get in these fields or do they just not advertise for them outside of the hospital?

I didn't see a tech forum for entry level people looking to get into the tech field so I decided to post it here. I may see this job as a step to get into something more career related such as surgical tech or even nursing. But for now I'm just looking to get my foot in the door.

Do you want to be a nurse?
An yeah i'd reccomend ER for clinical exposure, although most commonly they need someone with experience (you'll be expected to start IV's, draw blood, and you WILL have to clean patients if that situations arises).

 

[jwk]

There are a lot of post-high school technical colleges that deal with the exact fields you're looking at - EKG tech, phlebotomy, rad tech, surgical tech, and EMT-P. Start there.

 

[sarjasy]

The problem I have is that I don't generally want to do patient care(cleaning, changing, washing patients) and am more interested in the technical work such as EKG, Phlebotomy, surgery tech, X-Ray, taking vitals, IV placement, etc.

I may see this job as a step to get into something more career related such as surgical tech or even nursing.

If you don't like patient care (cleaning,changing, washing patients as you describe it), then you want to rule out later going into nursing. You'll get some of this in nursing school and as an RN you might get some of it to. In some nursing areas, you wouldn't get as much of it (ER, OR, PACU, cath lab, community) but in other areas you will get plenty (med-surg, cardiac floors, ICU).