I am considering a carreer change into hospital administration, because it looks steady and secure, it seems like a growing field and I’m good at dealing with red-tape and beurocratic stuff like yearly projections, budgets, quarterly reviews…and don’t much mind doing them.
I’m just at the start of investigating it, and whether it would be a good fit for me. I’m looking for any personal stories, hints about it as a career, pitfalls to avoid etc.
Also do I really need a degree in Hospital Administration or can my BA in a totally unrelated field suffice? My work experience is not in a medical field but I have extensive management experience.
I’d be happy to answer any specific questions you might have, although I don’t know exactly how many wild stories I want to share right off the bat.
I will tell you that I didn’t have a degree in hospital administration upon arriving: having extensive management experience is much more important. Any business degree will probably be good enough.
You’ll probably want to take a course at a local community college first in some basic medical terminology very soon, though: hospitals run in their own little world of jargon and you’ll be expected to follow along.