12 - Career opportunities

Summary

Medicine offers an amazing range of different career options. Most doctors end up in one of the three main areas of general practice, a hospital-based speciality, or public health. Smaller numbers of doctors end up in a huge range of possible careers as varied as military doctors to journalists, coroners to playwrights, pharmaceutical company researchers to missionary hospital doctors, expedition medics to university lecturers. Medical students are well advised to take a careful look at the very broad canvas of opportunity before they qualify. Most people finally choose their speciality within 2 or 3 years of graduation. However an increasing number of doctors attempt to choose careers which are more varied, include other interests, and are flexible enough to allow them to fit their career around their life, not the other way round. This chapter gives a taste of what each speciality is like and illustrates the wide variety of career opportunities open to a newly qualified doctor.

How and when to decide which speciality

Some fortunate people decide on their careers as students (fortunate, that is, if they have made a realistic decision), more decide in the first few years after medical school. Having cleared the hurdles of final examinations and foundation programme, and having found their medical feet in these mostly general posts, most students begin to focus on the speciality which appeals to them. Careers fairs are held annually in many parts of the country to display the attractions and to offer advice from doctors in all major specialities on a personal and informal level. The foundation programme is expected to offer personalised, formal career advice although in reality this is not yet as widespread as it needs to be.