Quote: (01-02-2013 03:03 PM)the chef Wrote:
shit. i'm currently in med school now (have 2 years left before i hopefully get a residency for internal med... then off to subspecialize in who knows what...) and am trying to weigh my options here. i'm really passionate about medicine and science but i'm starting to wonder how often i can experience "playtime" once i get into the working world. the more i shadow physicians during rounds all the doctors seem so fucking lame and dry... like where the fuck are the bitchin rockstar MD's? does such a thing exist?
either way i can't see myself venturing off into any other field. anything that doesn't involve science doesn't excite me.
Here are a few options I've discovered (there are probably more but I have yet to discover):
1) The traditional route where you become a slave to the system superspecialist and earn lots of money and have no life.
2) The slacker route where you find a chilled clinical family medicine niche or anaesthesiology niche or virology niche or something like it and have a limited practice. You have control over you life and a stable income and chill lifestyle, but not much money.
3) The part-time gun-for-hire route. Get some super-specialised skills that are in high demand. Choose your hours, work on a contract basis. IMO international medical evacuation is the best option, really long missions that can stretch over days, but you can earn in one mission what some people earn over months. Once the lifestyle becomes too exhausting you can upgrade to the desk jockey version - medical evacuation co-ordinator.
3) Go corporate. Contact pharmaceutical and insurance companies and find out what roles they have for doctors. Become a doctor desk jockey.
4) Go academic. Find vacancies in academic research posts in basic medical sciences, where you won't be competing with people who are specialising eg. physiology, anatomy, histology.