A Hospital Corpsman is a Navy enlisted medical specialist — providing patient care across shipboard sick bays, hospital wards, Marine field units, and clinics, depending on assignment.
A typical day depends sharply on where you're stationed. In a Navy hospital, you're doing tasks similar to a CNA or medical assistant — vitals, treatments, documentation, patient assists. With a Marine unit, you're the field medic carrying combat lifesaver gear and providing point-of-injury care.
The collaboration tends to be tight and rank-structured. You work alongside nurses, physicians, dental officers, and other corpsmen, and your scope of practice can stretch a long way in austere environments. Training cycles, deployments, and qualifications shape much of the rhythm outside direct care.
People who tend to thrive bring clinical curiosity, physical readiness, and the ability to function inside military structure. The role can offer remarkable hands-on experience early in a medical career, but the deployment cadence and the weight of combat trauma exposure are real costs.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
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View all Healthcare roles →A Hospital Corpsman is a Navy enlisted medical specialist — providing patient care across shipboard sick bays, hospital wards, Marine field units, and clinics, depending on assignment.
Median pay for a Hospital Corpsman is about $39K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $31K to $50K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Service Orientation, Social Perceptiveness, Active Listening, Social Perceptiveness, and Service Orientation.
Most people in this role hold a high school diploma.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 2.8% through 2034, with roughly 1.4 million people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Clinical Assistant, Ward Aide, and Patient Sitter.
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