Too Often, We Teach the Major, Not the Ecosystem — Healthcare Edition

Find Your True North
Oct 27
3 min read

The Narrow Lens of Career Talk

When you ask a student what they want to be in the future and they say, “I want to work in healthcare,” what’s the first thing that comes to mind? For most, it’s either a doctor or a nurse.

That’s the problem.

Not because those roles aren’t important — they are the backbone of patient care — but because they represent only a fraction of the entire system that makes healthcare function.

For every doctor treating a patient, there’s a medical technologist running critical lab tests behind the scenes.

For every nurse in the ward, there’s a health data analyst helping design safer care pathways. And for every surgeon using cutting-edge tools, there’s a biomedical engineer who made them possible.

This hidden ecosystem is vast and vital. Yet, our education and career guidance systems rarely help students see it.

The Hidden Ecosystem of Healthcare

Healthcare is not one career; it’s thousands of interdependent roles working together to keep humans healthy and systems functional.

Roles like:

🧬 Genetic Counselor — guiding families through inherited conditions.
📊 Health Data Analyst — transforming numbers into patient insights.
🧫 Medical Technologist — ensuring accurate lab diagnostics.
💻 Healthcare IT Specialist — building secure digital systems for hospitals.
🏥 Hospital Administrator — managing the flow of care and resources.
🧠 Health Policy Analyst — shaping national health programs.
🧍 Physiotherapist — helping patients regain mobility and dignity.
🍎 Nutritionist — creating personalized food plans that prevent disease.
⚙ Biomedical Engineer — designing medical devices and life-saving tools.

Each of these roles carries meaning, purpose, and measurable impact. They are not “alternative” careers. They are essential careers.

The Real Gap: Awareness

Students are taught to choose a major, rather than understanding the ecosystem it belongs to. This limited framing makes career decisions transactional: “What job will this degree get me?”

But in truth, every degree opens doors to a system of opportunities, each connecting knowledge, skills, and human needs in different ways.

The issue begins early. School counseling often focuses on marks and “mainstream” professions. College brochures highlight degrees, not the range of possibilities they unlock. As a result, most young people step into higher education without a real sense of what lies beyond the obvious roles.

And when awareness is narrow, so is aspiration.

Reframing the Career Question

At Find Your True North, we believe the starting point of career exploration should be ecosystem awareness, helping students connect what they enjoy, value, and excel at to the real-world problems those skills can help solve.

It’s time to shift from asking:

“What job does this degree lead to?”to“What problems can this training help solve?”

That simple shift moves the focus from titles to impact, from fitting in to contributing meaningfully.

A student interested in biology doesn’t have to limit themselves to medicine. They might find their true north in medical imaging, genetics, or public health.

A student passionate about computers can apply that skill in healthcare IT or telemedicine systems.

A data enthusiast can improve patient outcomes by analyzing hospital workflows.

Every interest has a place in the healthcare ecosystem, but only if students can see it.

Beneath the Surface Lies Possibility

The future of work in healthcare is multidisciplinary.

As technology, ethics, and policy intertwine, we’ll need professionals who can collaborate across science, design, data, and empathy.

Every student deserves to explore this full landscape — to see beyond degree names and discover where their potential fits within the system.

Because healthcare doesn’t just need more doctors.

It needs thinkers, analysts, builders, counselors, and innovators: all aligned by one mission: improving human health.

It’s time to teach not just the major, but the ecosystem.

At Find Your True North, we help students discover what lies beneath the surface, connecting curiosity with real-world purpose.