The healthcare industry is among the most in-demand throughout the pandemic. In fact, there was a shortage of healthcare professionals during the height of the crisis, as even the big hospitals became easily overwhelmed by the surge of COVID-19 patients. This was compounded by the fact that even the so-called frontline workers fell victim to the deadly virus.

Aside from doctors and nurses in hospitals, other healthcare-related professionals became busy during the pandemic. Healthcare workers in nursing homes, mental health clinics, diagnostic or testing centers, and several other healthcare facilities became in-demand since the COVID-19 crisis started.

If you’re currently eyeing a career in the healthcare industry, but you’re having second thoughts due to your lack of college or medical degree, you should be happy to know that there are quite a handful of jobs that you can apply for despite your educational handicap.

Here are the best healthcare-centered positions that you can try your luck with minus a medical or college degree:

Dental assistant

Even before the pandemic, dental clinics are easily among the busiest healthcare-related facilities that cater to a lot of patients. Knowing this, you should seriously consider pursuing a career as a dentist’s assistant soon.

You can simply enroll in a dental assisting preparatory course to enjoy theoretical and hands-on training in the various facets of the job — both administrative and clinical. Upon completing such a program, you’ll be issued documents that would allow you to legally practice the profession as a dental assistant.

Medical scribe

A medical scribe completes patient information (typically the patient chart) using proprietary record-keeping software that the physician can easily access remotely. Such an assistant provides great help to doctors since the latter can focus better on treating patients instead of devoting their time manually encoding patient information in the computer.

You need to be medically-inclined and be a quick thinker and fast encoder to find success as a medical scribe.

Surgical technologist

Operating room procedures won’t be as smooth and effective without surgical technologists assisting OR crew in preparing the equipment needed for surgeries. Surgical technologists are tasked with the pre-operation equipment preparation, as well as handing over specific surgical equipment based on doctors’ instructions.

A certification program or an associate’s degree is required for the job, so be sure to have either one or both of these requirements to land a job as a surgical technologist.

Assisted living personnel

Workers in the assisted living category perform a variety of tasks: as caregivers, maintenance crew, dining services, and housekeeping, among others.

This is one of the sub-industries under healthcare services that do not require a college degree to apply on, but instead a proven experience and skills in providing care to seniors and adults that need someone to assist them on a wide range of daily living needs.

Speech therapist

Many people suffer from a form of a speech defect, which can be congenital (at birth), due to a medical condition (such as stroke), or caused by a traumatic experience. A speech therapist or speech-language pathologist performs an evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of speech problems.

Speech therapists help patients improve their sentence construction and vocabulary in written and oral forms, as well as help them make better vocal sounds. They also aid patients to gradually improve their overall voice quality, so they can be understood better and feel better about themselves.

Occupational therapist assistant

An occupational therapist is basically a physical therapist who specializes in occupational cases. He or she employs special techniques that aim to treat emotional, mental, physical, and developmental conditions that limit a person’s capacity to discharge basic tasks.

The occupational therapist assistant is usually charged with helping the occupational therapist in the examination of the patient and crafting a customized treatment program, as well as monitoring the patient’s progress. The therapist assistant is likewise responsible for helping in efforts to educate the patient and his or her family or employer concerning the status of the patient and his or her specific needs.

Registered nurse (RN)

A registered nurse (RN) is among the most highly sought-after healthcare-related positions that do not require a medical degree and, in some cases, even a college degree. This position requires doing rounds in medical wards to record patients’ status and personal, as well as medical details (daily medical progress).

A nurse is likewise responsible for giving medications and doing other patient care tasks in coordination with the attending physicians and other specialists that are assigned to patients.

To land a job as a registered nurse, you can try several ways: by getting a bachelor’s degree in nursing and then passing the NCLEX-RN exam, by securing an associate’s degree in nursing, or by finishing a diploma course in a duly recognized nursing program.