Photo: Sushil Dawka (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Job description
A typical semester blends classroom teaching with mentoring students through internships, clinical rotations, or research projects, alongside prepping syllabi and course materials for whichever health specialty they teach. Staying current matters here as much as anywhere in academia, so professors keep up with journals and conferences in fast-moving clinical fields. Many also take on administrative work, from sitting on academic committees to helping recruit and place students into health programs, and a doctorate in the relevant field (MD, PharmD, PhD, or DNP) is the standard credential.
Pros
- High upside earning potential, up to $322k, well above most postsecondary teaching fields
- Much faster than average projected growth (17.3%) as health programs expand enrollment
- Large field with 27,400 positions nationwide, more openings than most academic specialties
Cons
- Above-average hours, expect more than a standard 40-hour work week
- Requires a doctorate in a health field (MD, PharmD, PhD, or DNP), a long training path
- Administrative duties like committee work and student recruitment add to teaching workload
A typical day
At 7:30am the professor is in a hospital hallway in a white coat, leading four medical residents on teaching rounds — pausing outside each room to quiz them gently on differential diagnoses before seeing the patient together. Late morning shifts to campus: a lecture to eighty pharmacy students on drug interactions, built around cases from real practice. Office hours fill the early afternoon with a struggling student and a research advisee, followed by grading clinical performance evaluations. The last hours go to the professor's own scholarship — revising a journal manuscript and prepping next week's simulation lab, where students will run a mock code on a robotic patient.
Tasks at the job
- Prepare course materials, such as syllabi, homework assignments, and handouts.
- Keep abreast of developments in the field by reading current literature, talking with colleagues, and participating in professional conferences.
- Plan, evaluate, and revise curricula, course content, course materials, and methods of instruction.
- Supervise undergraduate or graduate teaching, internship, and research work.
- Participate in student recruitment, registration, and placement activities.
- Serve on academic or administrative committees that deal with institutional policies, departmental matters, and academic issues.
Workplace & working conditions
Work happens indoors in a climate-controlled setting, and most of the day is spent sitting at a desk.
There's a regular, moderate amount of time pressure, and you're expected to exercise significant independent judgment day to day. The work is highly structured, following set procedures. You'll regularly deal with frustrated or upset people as part of the job, and almost all of the work is done as part of a team.
Education necessary or common
Doctorate in the relevant health field (e.g. MD, PharmD, PhD, or DNP)
Common college majors
Licenses & certifications
- Terminal clinical or research doctorate (MD, DO, PharmD, DNP, or PhD) — the true entry requirement
- Board certification in the clinical specialty being taught
- State clinical licensure in the relevant profession
Career path
Related fields
Courses to take
- AP Biology — the non-negotiable foundation for any health field
- AP Chemistry — required territory for medicine, pharmacy, and nursing science
- Anatomy and Physiology — a head start on the content you'd one day teach
- AP Statistics — clinical research literacy starts here
- AP English Language or Public Speaking — teaching is performance plus clarity
Clubs, activities & competitions
- HOSA — health career exploration and competition
- Peer tutoring — teaching is the job; find out now if you love explaining things
- Hospital or clinic volunteering
- Science Olympiad or science fair research
First steps you can take now
- Tutor a younger student in science this month and notice whether teaching energizes you
- Shadow a clinician who also teaches — ask how they split practice and instruction
- Email a professor at a nearby university's health program and ask about their path
- Read about the clinical degrees behind this career (MD, PharmD, DNP, PhD) and what each trains you to teach
