by Eileen O’Shanassy

If you thrive on travel but also work in the medical field, there are actually some jobs to satisfy your passion for traveling. Typically, jobs in the healthcare field are not the kind of occupations you associate with travel, but there are many opportunities in the healthcare industry that will allow you to remain in your preferred career and indulge in frequent travel. Here are several jobs in the healthcare field allowing work to include your love of moving around to see new places, cultures, and meet new people.

Medical Device Sales Representative

This occupation usually requires at least a bachelor’s degree, and it can be a lucrative career. The kind of money you make all depends on the territory or market you are working in, and the kind of equipment you are selling. The good news besides it being a lucrative career, is the traveling involved. There is quite a bit of travel involved in selling medical devices, especially if you have an expansive territory, or your company is wanting to expand overseas. Some supplies are needed in all parts of the country, and as a seller or supplier you could end up going to some very remote locations.

Healthcare Consultant

There a variety of healthcare consultants tasked with helping healthcare organizations run profitably and efficiently. As a healthcare consultant, you would help to give guidance to various levels of management to all areas of running an urgent care center, doctor’s office, hospital, or some kind of healthcare facility. Healthcare consultants consult on everything, such as financial planning, staffing, process improvement, patient flow, operations, cost-saving and other areas. Also, if you chose this career path, you might also help consult on large, important projects like EHR conversion, HIPAA compliance, ICD-10 implementation or something else of equal magnitude.

If you became a healthcare consultant, your traveling would include the accounts your consultant firm held, so you could provide your company’s specialized consultation services, which could range from a smaller area of travel, to a vast one depending on the size and success of your firm. You could become a freelance healthcare consultant or an independent contractor, but you would most likely be with a firm or start with one. It would take quite a while and networking to become self-employed, but your travel network would expand if you did.

Traveling Nurse

Travel nurses opt out of taking one long-term position. Instead, they decide to take on many different short-term jobs, and all of them are in a variety of locations. Travel nursing is a great career for nurses who do not want to be tied down to a single position, want flexibility, and want to steer clear of long-term location commitments. Also, traveling nurses get paid per diem, and getting paid per diem takes care of the financial costs of living for the day while out on an assignment, such as food, fuel, and lodging expenses.

Travel nursing is a great career for people with a personality prone to getting burned out quickly or bored easily. If you wanted to be a travel nurse, it would allow you to experience different mixes of patients, a variety of practice settings and new co-workers. The new co-workers can be a turn off or on depending on who you meet because you would get them every few weeks or months when you go to work in different locales should you choose this career path. It is even possible to head to another country or overseas. This can get complicated when it comes to moving and having your car shipped, but if you love to travel, the sky is the limit as a traveling nurse. Talk to American Auto Shipping, LLC for more information on moving overseas and options for moving in bulk.

Pharmaceutical Sales

Sales careers usually involve travel, especially in the healthcare field. Typically, a pharmaceutical sales rep does not travel as much as a device sales rep because they have smaller territories, but there are exceptions. In addition to traveling to meet customers, if you chose to become a pharma sales rep, you would also get to travel to conferences, trade shows, and sales meetings. In other words, you would have a busy life on the road constantly meeting new people and seeing old friends often too.

There are a variety of careers in the healthcare field. They range from hands-on medicine to sales, and it is possible to find a traveling niche in each. If you want to travel and work in medicine, you have plenty of options.

Eileen O’Shanassy is a freelance writer and blogger based out of Flagstaff, AZ. She writes on a variety of topics and loves to research and write. She enjoys baking, biking, and kayaking. Check out her Twitter, @eileenoshanassy.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.