Career Jumpers

Are you sick and tired of your health related job? The solution may be closer than you think. Health care professionals who feel burnt out or unfulfilled should consider a lateral move to another discipline, or a transition from the clinical side to the administrative, instead of walking away from the field altogether.

Many professionals are doing just this, and others still are coming into health care from a variety of fields, seeking a new perspective, set of challenges and the excitement that medicine can provide. A Balancing Act Caryn Perlmutter, MT(ASCP)SH, BSN, RN, has more than just a lot of credentials. She also has two careers. Perlmutter works as both an RN and as a bench tech for Virtua Health System facilities in Voorhees and Marlton, NJ. Originally a bench tech, she worked her way up to a management position, before deciding she wanted more opportunities. Abandoning her management position for part-time bench tech work enabled Perlmutter to go back to school and get a bachelor's degree in nursing. La Salle University (Philadelphia) offered an evening and weekend program that allowed her to complete the program in just 2 years. Perlmutter told ADVANCE she wanted to stay in health care because she found it rewarding, and turned to nursing because of the shortage. While her flexible schedule made returning to school easier, the program took a lot of hard work and dedication, she said. "You have to really want to do it if you are going to make a career change like this." She hopes to get more satisfaction out of dealing directly with patients and their families as an RN. However, she decided to keep her tech position and stayed on per diem, working between her nursing shifts. "I forgot how much I enjoyed working as a bench tech," Perlmutter said. She also enjoyed the opportunity to work in different areas, which being a tech provided, particularly in blood banking. "I wanted to keep my old roots," she said. Out From Behind the Microscope Matt Tumasz has made another kind of change-from using instruments in the lab to producing them. He transitioned from a position as a nuclear medicine technologist to the product side of the lab, and is now working as a senior director of marketing sales at Fujirebio Diagnostics, Inc.(FDI), Malvern, PA. He finds developing and manufacturing instruments to be more exciting, challenging and rewarding. He enjoys helping develop strategies of instrumentation, and feels his background in the lab helps him tremendously in his job. FDI produces tumor assays that help to diagnose many types of cancers. Tumasz finds his position in assay development to be even more rewarding than his lab work, as he is helping to support both patients and physicians on a bigger scale. He is pleased with his career move and the way his new position has progressed. Tumasz told ADVANCE his favorite part of producing instruments is "taking a look at what's going on in the marketplace and seeing how things are evolving with the new technologies. It's extremely rewarding to see how our products are contributing to the fight against cancer." Medic to Med-Tech Linda P. Whaley, BS (CLS)NCA, a medical technologist, has sampled several careers, but didn't find her niche until she entered the lab. Whaley always was interested in health care, working as a military medic for more than 10 years and as a civilian paramedic for 7 years. After receiving a bachelor's degree, Whaley worked as a technical editor, focusing on medical journals. The challenge wasn't enough for her, however, and she went back to school for another 2 years to become a medical technologist. Because she minored in science the first time around, she was spared some of the initial courseload and was able to complete her degree after 2 years of clinical coursework and 1 year of rotations. "I'm living proof that you can find something that you really love to do. It's never too late, you're never stuck," Whaley said. "It took me a long time to find what I wanted to do, but now I know I am where I want to be for the rest of my life." Whaley loves the problem solving nature of her new career, encouraging anyone with any inclination to science to explore the clinical field. Kerri Penno is an editorial assistant at ADVANCE. She can be reached at kpenno@merion.com.