Have you thought about working in a hospital or a doctor's office? Or maybe you watched a nurse care for someone in your family and wondered what that work is really like. Either way, it's hard to know if healthcare is the right fit before you've even learned much about it!
High school electives give you a low-pressure way to find out. If you're earning your diploma online, you may be able to take healthcare classes as part of the credits you already need.
So, how do you prepare? Healthcare electives won't train you for a specific job or get you certified, but they introduce healthcare fundamentals, build communication and career-planning skills, and give you a clearer sense of whether you want more healthcare training.
What is a healthcare career pathway in online high school?
At U.S. Career Institute, you need 24 credits to earn your diploma. Most come from core subjects like English, math, science and social science, along with required electives and electives you choose yourself.
Every student also completes a four-credit block of vocational or general education electives. That's where a career pathway comes in. You can take the general education track or follow a pathway in business, fitness, healthcare, paralegal, or veterinary studies.
Choosing the healthcare pathway is optional, and it doesn't add credits. Instead, the healthcare pathway courses count toward the four-credit elective requirement, rather than replacing core academic courses.
Healthcare pathway electives are spread throughout the program alongside your other high school courses. That way, you can explore healthcare while also making progress in subjects like English, math and science.
What you'll study in the healthcare pathway
The four-credit track includes four healthcare-specific classes, along with career development and communication coursework.
Healthcare courses
- Medical Terminology: Learn how medical terms are built by dividing and combining word parts, along with common abbreviations.
- Ethics and Healthcare Law: Explore patient privacy, healthcare law, ethics, compliance, fraud and abuse, HIPAA, and release of records.
- Introduction to Anatomy: See how anatomy, physiology and pathology relate while studying anatomical landmarks, body divisions, cells, and tissues.
- Safety, First Aid and Vital Signs: Cover safety in a medical office, basic first aid and how vital signs such as blood pressure, pulse, and temperature are measured.
Communication and career-planning courses
You’ll also spend time thinking about what comes next, from setting career goals to researching your options and exploring the job market. Public speaking is part of the mix, too, with practice preparing and delivering informative and persuasive speeches. For full course descriptions, visit our high school curriculum page.
How these classes help you explore a healthcare path
Medical terms, anatomy, and patient privacy aren't just high school topics. You'll come across many of them again if you continue your healthcare education. U.S. Career Institute's Medical Assistant certificate program, for example, includes Medical Terminology, Introduction to Anatomy, and First Aid Procedures among the subjects students learn. If you decide to keep going, those ideas won't be brand new to you.
The career development and speech coursework is useful whether or not you stay with healthcare. Researching your options, setting goals, and speaking clearly in front of a group are skills you'll use in future training and job searches.
One of the biggest benefits is just knowing more about what you want to do next. By the end of your high school program with the healthcare career pathway, you'll know more about the subjects healthcare is built on and whether they hold your interest. Maybe anatomy turns out to be your favorite class, or the privacy and records side appeals to you more than the human body does.
If you're still sorting through your options, our guide on how to find a career path in high school has more ideas.
What high school healthcare electives can and can't do
U.S. Career Institute's catalog outlines what students should be able to do after completing the healthcare pathway. You'll gain a fundamental understanding of the human body and medical terminology, along with legal and ethical standards around patient confidentiality. You'll also practice researching careers and setting goals.
That's a solid foundation, but it has limits. High school electives aren't job training. They don't prepare you for a certification exam, lead to a license, or include clinical training. Safety, First Aid, and Vital Signs, for example, covers how vital signs are measured, but it isn't clinical training.
If you want to work in a specific healthcare role, the next step is looking at training built for that role.
Where can you go after graduation?
Once you have your diploma, what comes next is up to you. Some graduates pursue a certificate focused on one role or explore a degree program.
U.S. Career Institute offers online healthcare certificates for roles such as medical assistant, phlebotomy technician, pharmacy technician, and medical coding and billing specialist. It also offers healthcare associate degrees, including health information technology.
If you're still in high school or finishing your diploma as an adult, the healthcare pathway gives you room to explore first. U.S. Career Institute's online high school serves teens, homeschool families, and adults. Classes are 100% online and self-paced, letting you focus on one subject at a time.
Is healthcare the right direction for you? Explore the healthcare career pathway to see how the classes fit into your diploma!