I'm starting to wonder what it takes to go in a new direction. I'd like to get into the healthcare industry. Seems recession proof. What sounds very interesting to me right now is cancer and nutrition. My whole background to date is business and marketing. Can I gain expertise as a nutritionist and apply it to a relationship with cancer? I'd love to work at Lucille Packard Childrens Hospital or Stanford. I'm not a nurse and have no medical background. Needles freak me out. I'd love to help people and contribute to their well being. When sick kids are in the hospital and families are here to be near them, what jobs are there that help those families?
I think I need to get career information somehow. Training needed, types of jobs available. Salary potential for said field of work. Please offer tips or thoughts on this. Maybe I'm having the proverbial mid-life crisis......
Set up a meeting with HR at Packard. Strictly informational. Tell them exactly what you're thinking, tell them your skills, and ask them what sorts of things you could do without having to go back to school for four years. Then ask them what you could do if you did go back to school. Just find out the possibilities. "Think of all the possibilities, and make a wish!"
Me - I made a serious job change six years ago. Left upper mgmt in high tech because I wanted to be an actual parent to my 2.5 yr old boy. (It was my wife's idea: "You thought about doing something different?" "You mean, like marketing?" "No, I mean totally outside the industry!") I went way the hell in a different direction: I became a carpenter and started the odyssey toward being a general contractor. Not your usual thing to start when you're 43 or 44. It can be done, though. I have my license, which means that I have a lot of the headaches I used to have when I was running engineering, but it also means those headaches are mine instead of the company's, and it means I can set my own hours and decide when it's time to go home and be involved with the family.
It can be done.
//John
