*This is a sponsored post*
I’ve briefly discussed my career plans with psychology but I have never really gone in depth about it because one, I am still not sure of the path I want to take, and two I didn’t want to talk about goals that I potentially could not accomplish. However, I am ready to talk about my future goals for my career in psychology, so here we go!
When I was a little girl I noticed my interest in psychology peaking as I would have conversations with my cousin, who was studying psychology at the time. I knew that I wanted to do something in the field of psychology, but just was not sure what so as I got older I strayed away from thinking that I’d have a career in this field. This topic never really came up again until I started the college application process as many of the schools needed you to select your desired major. For some of the applications I selected psychology and for others I selected undecided as I truly was undecided, but did not want to rule psychology out. During my first semester of undergrad I took an intro to psychology class since I knew I liked psychology and I wanted to have that pre-requisite out of the way in case I eventually decided to declare psychology as my major.
Finally toward the end of my sophomore year I decided to declare psychology as my major and I have committed to the field since, well more or less haha. Though I decided on psychology I still had some doubts because I was not sure of my specialty for the field and did not think I was “cut out” for private-practice as there’s a heavy business aspect to it. In addition, as a psychology major, I needed to have a minor so I needed to choose something else (as if choosing a major wasn’t hard enough). I decided on a general communication minor as I really like writing and being creative and this major allowed me to take classes that were aligned with this.
During my senior year of college, I took a health communication class and it was one of my favorite classes that I took during college because it was unique as I learned about the unique field of health communication. I feel like many people forget about health communication as physicians primary jobs are to diagnose and treat a patient, but the communication aspect is extremely important as this is truly impactful for the patient’s experience. We learned about the effective ways of communicating including implementing plans, conversing with patients and their care-givers, and being attentive to their needs. When I think of a leader in the health communication field I think of iMedX . Their main goal is to help their clients maintain documentation for their patients by using technology as their main method. I think this company is a leader in the health communication field as they use a perspective called “humanology” which means that people work along with technology in order to be efficient and accomplish their goals. I feel that many people are moving toward technology for everything however, you cannot get rid of the human aspect of communication as that is key!
After taking this health communication class I realized that this is definitely something that needs to be emphasized in all healthcare settings including psychology as documentation is essential when working with various different patients.
As I am in a graduate program right now I have started thinking more seriously about what I want my career to look like. I am leaning more toward joining a group practice or starting my own practice once I gain experience. I am discouraged from starting my own practice as it is truly your own business which means you have to deal with the management and financial aspects of the business. I am definitely not business savvy, however I would be inclined to use services from iMedX if I eventually go this route.
I have successfully completed my first quarter of graduate school and I am so glad that I decided on this psychology route. Lately people have been asking me “why psychology?” and my initial response is that I believe mental health is as important as physical health. I feel that the stigma around mental health is finally starting to slowly go away and I hope that by the time I am a practicing psychologist that more progress will have been made!