The Health Careers of the Future

Transformed by digitalization, the health sector needs new competences and careers that will respond to tech services and solutions for direct-to-patient contact and institutional performance. Based on the predictors of Frost & Sullivan and Medical Futurist, here is a list of future careers for healthcare.

Short-term

1. Reconstructive Surgery 3D Printing Specialists

From custom orthopedic implants to “organoids” made from living cells for drug testing, 3D printing applications for healthcare have come a long way. In the future, burn and accident victims could be given new skin grown using their own cells and 3D printed for use in reconstructive surgery. Thus, a new breed of 3D printing technicians who specialize in tissue generation will be required.

2. Voice Assistant Healthcare Content Specialists

At present, the people behind voice-based virtual assistants (like Amazon’s Alexa) content are developers and not healthcare specialists. In future, as voice assistants evolve to serve additional healthcare areas, domain specialists who can build content will become a necessity to provide accurate and relevant content for users’ health management.

3. Virtual Hospital Managers

Virtual hospitals have no beds of their own. Instead, doctors and nurses see their patients on computer monitors that also display patient data and list problems that computer programs think clinicians should monitor.

4. Health Finances Planners

Reimbursement by health insurance may not always be available, giving rise to a new role for financial experts: health finances planners. Much like assisting with income tax filings, these planners will help people choose the right health insurance coverage for their needs and plan for health events by investing early on in the right options to generate sufficient funds.

5. AI chatbot designer

Medical AI assistants can determine where to go from the right questions. These are able to target the right medicine and the most possible explanation for one’s symptoms. For mental health or physical health issues, AI chatbot designers will represent a great support for immediate patient concerns and overwhelmed doctors.

Long-term

1. Robot companion technician

As robotic companions become more and more popular, there will be a growing demand for professionals who can fix them if they suddenly become unresponsive.

2. Organ designer

With many patients waiting for organ transplants, the demand for bio-printed organs, and for organ designers, is already skyrocketing. This career path could be an unequivocal choice for those with a background in molecular biology, 3D printing and medicine.

3. Augmented/virtual reality operation planners for surgical interventions

Within 20-30 years, augmented/virtual reality operation planners will help surgeons prepare for complex surgical interventions. The planner visualizes the organs and the entire process through augmented/virtual reality.

4. Precision Medicine Compounding Pharmacists

Future patients could be treated with precision medicine as the norm. In this scenario, pharmacists will feed the robots the correct information about patients based on their genetics and individual characteristics.

The field is also threatened by unethical uses of health technologies. For example, health data hackers and biological terrorists could significantly damage end-users but this can be prevented through regulation. “Appropriate frameworks are key to ensure the industry is working in a way that will not affect individual rights and freedoms. In turn, this will create more trust from the user and potential user base,” explained Claudia Del Pozo, Director, C Minds Eon Resilience Lab.