I include this career partly because you'd think I was nuts if I omitted such a prestigious, well-paying profession; but listen to this: There is an oversupply of doctors, especially specialists, in most urban and suburban areas. Many experts believe that demand for doctors, especially specialists, will decrease as HMOs increasingly use nurse practitioners and physician's assistants to lower costs. Even if you can find a job, HMOs severely constrain how physicians can practice medicine: Visits are shorter, and more and more treatments are subject to external scrutiny. Meanwhile, malpractice suits climb. Perhaps the biggest minus is that a physician's life is extraordinarily stressful. Consider the typically six to eight years after college that it takes to prepare to be a physician, the enormous cost of medical school, the fraternity-like hazing called internship, the strain of high-stakes decision-making, having to inform unsuspecting patients of severe illnesses, and the now prohibitive costs of starting your own practice. And there's more. Medicine is changing so rapidly that it's impossible to keep up, so many physicians practice while feeling guilty that because of their own lack of knowledge and HMO constraints, they may not be giving their patients the best possible treatment. Because physicians have ready access to mind-altering drugs, many docs turn to them for stress relief. American Medical Association: www.ama-assn.org . DoctorLink: www.doctorlink.com . Jobs: www.practicelink.com , www.Mddirect.com , and www.mdrsearch.com . Marita Danek's book, Becoming a Physician Robert Marion's book, Learning to Play God: The Coming of Age of a Young Doctor.
For many aspiring physicians, physician's assistant (See profiles) may be a smarter career choice even though it obviously has less prestige and lower income potential. If, however, you want to consider the M.D. route, there are neat niches:
(Neat Niche) University Student Health Service Physician. College student health problems are usually curable, you have no overhead, and you work in a beautiful, stimulating setting.
(Neat Niche): Infectious Diseases. As you're reading this, terrorist groups and governments are refining their ability to create one-of-a-kind mutated viruses to use as bioweapons. Natural selection is creating superbacteria that are resistant to even the most powerful antibacterials. The likelihood of contracting infectious diseases is growing because of easier worldwide travel, more crowded public transit, and increasing sexual promiscuity. I'm not just talking about rare, newly discovered pathogens such as the dreaded West Nile or Hanta viruses. Cases of the formerly thought-of-as-cured tuberculosis are increasing, even here in the U.S. And then there's AIDS: the virus itself, and the myriad opportunistic infections that its victims contract. Infectious disease researchers and practitioners do some of our most important and challenging work. Infectious Diseases Society of America: www.idsociety.org .
(Neat Niche) Occupational Medicine. This niche offers many advantages. Need: On-the-job accidents and job-related illnesses are frequent, with a relative shortage of occupational medicine docs. Compensation: Employers and insurers know that your efforts to prevent on-the-job illnesses and accidents will save them lots of money, so compensation is good. Variety: Internal medicine, psychiatry, surgery, epidemiology, toxicology, forensic medicine, administration, preventive medicine-- occupational medicine encompasses them all. Success rate: You help a high percentage of your patients. Occupational medicine portal: http://gilligan.mc.duke.edu/oem .
(Neat Niche) Hospital Research Director. Many hospitals, even those unaffiliated with universities, conduct research. Research director is a great job for a burned-out doc who'd like to improve the quality of medical care rather than just implementing the status quo. Grant proposal writing skills are key.
(Neat Niche) Cosmetic Surgeon. Newly available techniques are making it evermore likely that you'll delight your patients. Society tends to denigrate cosmetic surgery as a narcissistic luxury, one that objectifies the body rather than focusing on a person's substance. I used to think that way myself. But I've seen so many people's lives be so improved as a result of the surgery, they feel much better about themselves every minute of every day and are even more productive at work. So, I've become a fan. I wonder if cosmetic surgery has done more to improve people's sense of well being than psychotherapy. About.com's plastic surgery portal: http://plasticsurgery.about.com .
(Neat Niche) Sports Medicine. As the fitness fad continues, the number of weekend warriors grows, and in turn, the number of injuries. Most of these are fixable, so sports medicine is rewarding. American College of Sports Medicine: www.acsm.org .
(Neat Niche) Infertility Specialist. Women working outside the home are deferring parenthood, sometimes until getting pregnant isn't so easy. Enter the infertility doctor, with an ever-growing array of fixes including in-vitro fertilization, now with egg screening to help ensure normalcy. What's next? Probably sooner than later, to maximize chances of a normal baby, cloning one of the parents. American Society for Reproductive Medicine: www.asrm.com.
http://www.martynemko.com/articles/cool-careers-excerpt_id1504
