A July 31 CNET.com column says medical devices may be the answer for job seekers who, despite a fascination with medicine, are disenchanted with the idea of becoming a healthcare professional.
“Healthcare conjures up images of hospital gowns, undecipherable medical bills, antiseptic smells and old people writhing in pain….It’s also not an easy path to riches anymore. Back in the ’70s, it seemed like a significant number of kids wanted to become doctors. Doctors drove Mercedes convertibles and married the suburban equivalent of fashion models. They were the top of the social and economic heap in America. A 20-year bull run on Wall Street and tech IPO riches killed that.”
The column goes on to call medical devices a “bright spot,” saying it’s an industry that combines “high technology and potentially astronomical profits.” Not to mention, a career in medical devices offers “a broad enough range of bodily functions to interest people without a level of detail that would make them recoil.”
The following companies are cited as examples of ones exhibiting this high tech, high profit-potential combo:
Satiety, a six-year-old Palo Alto, CA, company that’s working on a device that restricts how much food the stomach can hold. The company, which in May was named to Red Herring‘s annual list of the year’s most promising startups, raised $30 million in a Series D financing last month.
Syneron Medical, a Canadian aesthetic company whose technology combines bi-polar radio frequency and laser or light energy to perform cellulite and hair-removal treatments.