There have been some great suggestions and feedback from people on this thread. However, I have seen a few recommendations to consider nursing or physician assistant career options.

Unless scaredy’s son has a strong desire to be engaged in direct and constant patient care, these are not viable options. While the degrees do require some education in the sciences, overall they cannot be considered careers in science. The same can be said for medical doctors. There’s a lot of basic science involved in undergrad (pre-med), but far less in medical school (unless the student is getting a PhD in a research field simultaneously). Once the student graduates from med school, the chance to work in science is almost always over for good. Even those very few who work in academic medicine, and manage to run a translational research lab while teaching students and carrying a clinical load of patients, are actually spending that “lab” time supervising students or completing grant applications so that they can afford to do the research.

The sad thing is that many students work extremely hard to get themselves into highly competitive nursing or PA programs, and then are shocked by the care-centered curriculum and the direct patient care that pretty much makes up the professional school curriculum. There are far too many unsuited people going into nursing and PA programs these days strictly because they’ve heard that the money is great. For whatever reason, the reality that they will be taking care of very sick human beings never crosses their minds.

There are a huge number of science and engineering jobs in the medical field, for those who have no desire to work with patients. And thanks to the incredible advancement of the last 30 years, a lot of these career choices are really challenging and exciting.