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Wow, how did the world change so fast?
In 2005 I bailed out of the retail software industry to take on a more meaningful career (medicine), and I've been doing undergrad prereqs since. I was, and still am, permanently done with that industry where all we did was add features, and build stockholder value, and only fix problems with adequate cost/benefit ratios. In all honesty, for every convenience or benefit introduced by software, I saw two counts of consumer rage/frustration/despair. It was exhausting to fight for ease of use, and attempts frequently backfired. I searched, with a fair amount of rigor, for a healthcare software-related job, but I saw just as strong a profit motive there, even in non-profits! I couldn't get excited about going to grad school to do protein folding etc. And now, whatever, I am SO done with it.
But now there are software jobs that would have been worth staying for. There's an open source medical records project that Paul Farmer's org is backing, and it's rolled out in the PIH clinics. I saved a job description (I'm sure it's been filled) for a technology coordinator in Malawi to get systems up at a new PIH clinic there. There is a microcredit software org that's hiring devs and designers. I've seen some jobs at the WHO and UN that are related to low-tech solution rollouts.
I'm posting this in case somebody's on here trying to decide if bailing on software for medicine is a good idea. Maybe these links will be of interest, and you'll save $200k in med school loans on your way to an equally humanitarian career.
www.pih.org
www.openmrs.org
www.grameenfoundation.org
www.who.int
In 2005 I bailed out of the retail software industry to take on a more meaningful career (medicine), and I've been doing undergrad prereqs since. I was, and still am, permanently done with that industry where all we did was add features, and build stockholder value, and only fix problems with adequate cost/benefit ratios. In all honesty, for every convenience or benefit introduced by software, I saw two counts of consumer rage/frustration/despair. It was exhausting to fight for ease of use, and attempts frequently backfired. I searched, with a fair amount of rigor, for a healthcare software-related job, but I saw just as strong a profit motive there, even in non-profits! I couldn't get excited about going to grad school to do protein folding etc. And now, whatever, I am SO done with it.
But now there are software jobs that would have been worth staying for. There's an open source medical records project that Paul Farmer's org is backing, and it's rolled out in the PIH clinics. I saved a job description (I'm sure it's been filled) for a technology coordinator in Malawi to get systems up at a new PIH clinic there. There is a microcredit software org that's hiring devs and designers. I've seen some jobs at the WHO and UN that are related to low-tech solution rollouts.
I'm posting this in case somebody's on here trying to decide if bailing on software for medicine is a good idea. Maybe these links will be of interest, and you'll save $200k in med school loans on your way to an equally humanitarian career.
www.pih.org
www.openmrs.org
www.grameenfoundation.org
www.who.int
