Non-traditional Applicant: What is the highest-paying medical job one can get?

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PreMedBlogger

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I am gathering information for an article of mine. I think this list will benefit all non-traditional students who fit the criteria below.

Take a case Non-traditional pre-medical student: Non-traditional Applicant (25 y/o). Graduated from a Top-10 university with a Bachelor's in Biology & Physiology. High GPA 3.9+. Has hospital shadowing and volunteer experience only (2000+ hours).

What is the highest paying medical job this student can get that will not only provide benefits but look good on their resume? This student is living alone right now and needs health insurance/other insurance right now and is trying to find a job that provides benefits. This student needs additional recent healthcare experience for their med school applications AND also needs to pay the bills (rent/food/utilities/etc/etc/etc). This student may have a family and wants to take the job with the greatest salary so that he can use the other time for his family and not have to work additional jobs outside of the medical job.

This student is trying to find a list of medical jobs (see below), ranked in terms of the parameters below.

I am trying to make a table/list with the following information for each job:

1. Medical Job/Position

2. Salary Per Hour

3. Certifications/ Licenses Needed

4. Years of Additional Education to Obtain Certificate/License

5. Avg. Tuition Cost

Medical Job Search Table.jpg


Please help me complete this list!

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Are you asking about jobs before or after medical school? If you're asking about highest paying specialties, thats a google search away. If you're asking about random pre-med type jobs, they're all in the same <$20/hr range. Anything higher paying than that takes time/tuition/licensure and effort that would be better spent pursuing medicine. If that is their goal.
 
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Take a case Non-traditional pre-medical student: Non-traditional Applicant (25 y/o). Graduated from a Top-10 university with a Bachelor's in Biology & Physiology. High GPA 3.9+. Has hospital shadowing and volunteer experience only (2000+ hours).
I'm not sure I would consider that applicant "non-traditional" these days. Isn't the median matriculant age 24, with the mean a little higher?

Is there more to the story to make the non-trad label more clearly defined?
 
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You might be able to work as a lab tech in a hospital with a bachelor's in biology... less than $20/hr for that.

In my area, CNAs make around ~$10/hr at the highest, phlebotomists maybe $10-12/hr if lucky. Pharmacy techs ~$11-12/hr. Paramedics ~$18/hr.

With a previous bachelor's, you could do an accelerated BSN and get a bachelor's in nursing in as little as 12-18 months, but accelerated BSNs are expensive (lowest I've seen is around $40k) and you probably won't be able to work any more than part time during it because of the speed of the program, so that would be counterproductive if you have to pay bills.

LPN jobs are being phased out in many places so going LPN is unwise IMO, but you can probably get ~$15-18/hr doing that as well.


Somebody with the stats you mentioned is better off just going ahead and applying to med school. Those are good stats. If you check MSAR, it looks like only around 30-40% of matriculants at most schools have medical work experience. It's clearly not necessary for admission.
 
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Depending on state, hospital lab could be an option. Wage depends on state but average in my midwest area is around $20 + to start with a bachelors.

But as noted above, most places/states require certification/licensure. You can do a special post bachelor program to get certified.

Most decent paying healthcare jobs are going to require specialized training/cert/license etc. We just hired a phleb and were requiring 1 year exp or cert for $11-12 / hr when you can make $15/ hr here starting at walmart. Needless to say it took awhile to find someone.
 
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You don't need to have a job experience in healthcare to get into medical school. It's not PA school.
 
Your criteria for this hypothetical applicant IMO is nonsense. I wouldn't consider someone who went to a T10 (or any university) majoring in the sciences w/ clinical experience from ugrad to be someone of a "non-traditional path." To answer your question, all jobs on the road to med school pay very little, unless your a Biomedical Engineer and work some type of industry job prior to starting ...

As an aside, in undergrad I came across a med student who had been a banker from a T3 undergrad, he decided one day the life wasn't for him a few years in, went to post-bac, and then got accepted to my school's med program. That is what I'd consider a prime example of a non-trad
 
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