Question: What is the Difference between Clinical and Non-Clinical Medical Jobs?
Answer: The difference between clinical and non-clinical jobs is fairly simple. Just because you work in clinic or a hospital doesn’t mean your role is “clinical”. The term has to do with whether or not you treat patients or provide direct patient care of any type, in which case your job is “clinical”. Examples of clinical roles in healthcare are:
- Physician
- Nurse
- Allied health professionals ( medical assistants, techs, therapists, etc.)
Non-clinical roles are those which do not provide any type of medical treatment, or testing. Non-clinical roles include medical billers and coders, transcriptionists, hospital executives, receptionists, and anyone who works “behind the scenes” at a hospital such as Human Resources, IT, administrative assistants, etc. Some non-clinical workers do interact with patients, but do not actually provide medical care. There are a lot of other non-clinical roles in the medical industry such as pharmaceutical reps, medical recruiters, medical device sales, biomedical engineers, biostatisticians, patient advocates, case workers, and more!
