Comments on: What are non-clinical, location-independent jobs that advance (or could advance) the cause of reproductive health?

Question: What are non-clinical, location-independent jobs that advance (or could advance) the cause of reproductive health?

c'mon sea legs — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 09:06:15 -0800

What are non-clinical, location-independent jobs that advance (or could advance) the cause of reproductive health? How do you get the skills for those jobs? Do they exist?

A friend is a Masters-level engineer and can work from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. I think this is amazing, but I know I want my life's work to be in reproductive justice. Can I reconcile these two desires?

I'm looking at masters programs in public health right now, with the eventual hope of doing PhD-level reproductive health research, but would love to pick up skills along the way that a) allow me to travel and b) are marketable. I'm hopeful that being able to work from a variety of circumstances would inform and develop my research and advocacy, so this isn't *just* wanting to travel.

Given:
-I do not want to be a clinical provider
-I'm reasonably clever and self-directed, organized, a good writer, and like managing projects to completion
-I have some clinical background and some grant program management (I'm 25, so all work experience is only "some")
-To clarify with examples, "location independent" to me means laptop in a cafe, not teaching sex ed. In the former, you can decide your own location; in the latter, you're locationally bound for an amount of time, even if you can then leave and go wherever

So far I've thought of:
Grant writer
...

My mentors and coworkers are all either in large academic environments or clinical environments, so I'm turning to Metafilter. Thank you in advance! I'll be around to clarify, and hope you can give me some ideas that I can pursue in graduate school or via internship!

By: laconic titan

laconic titan — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 09:40:39 -0800

Do you speak any other languages? Translators can work from anywhere. I spent my summer translating a study of fertility comparing policies and local population conditions in three different countries. The policy recommendations are ALL ABOUT reproductive health and I'm thrilled to have been able to help make them available in English.

If your English is very very good and you already have some knowledge of another language, academic translation could be a good fit for you.

By: Michele in California

Michele in California — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 19:57:53 -0800

You might want to grow your own. Pick up a copy of "What color is your parachute?" It has a really good explanation of how to analyze two existing jobs/company types that are related to what you want to do but are not quite the same thing and then design your own based on existing knowns which aren't quite right.

A couple of thoughts:
Learn to code and write your own app.
Start The Kahn Academy (or other education oriented site) of your field.