After Medicine: 19 Career Options for Med Students, Residents, and Doctors (with salaries and hours)33 min read

I quit medicine after 10 years. Thousands of hours of studying, hospital work, and even marrying my space bar turned out to be all wasted time… or was it? Now, I’m the happiest and healthiest person I’ve been in my entire life, and I plan to join my 1st choice company to work in a non-clinical business position in a couple of months. Leaving clinical medicine for non-clinical careers is becoming less and less taboo.

But where do people go? Do they retire? Join pharma? Consulting? The path after medicine was actually more confusing than I thought when I first started thinking about leaving medicine. Many of these jobs require strange applications, connections, research, or even applying a year in advance to even be granted an interview. 

After hundreds of hours of research, Zoom interviews, and coffee chats (the worst), I secured job offers at some of the most prestigious firms in the world. But it wasn’t easy or straightforward by any means. You don’t just show the MD degree and get a job offer (unfortunately).

I’ll share with you what I wish I had known when I was first considering leaving medicine. What are the options out there? The paths to get there? The salaries and the hours? And, the biggie, how do I actually figure out if I want to quit clinical medicine?

Let’s start with non-clinical career options.

One AMA survey showed that 40% of practicing doctors were planning to leave within the next two years,¹ with a 2021 study showing about 7% of doctors leave clinical medicine every year.²

Non-Clinical Medicine

Alright, so the exciting stuff, what is out there? 

However, before we get into it, it’s very helpful to think about the big functional categories of most large companies before you dive into specifics. Of course, specific roles might include a couple of these, but, in general, it’s helpful to identify which one of these you enjoy the most or begin to try and get experience in these areas:

• How/WhenWhere/Why a company does things – Inside Facing
  • Strategy – Develop long-term plans and frameworks to guide the company’s interaction with things and people outside of the company. Work on achieving the company’s overarching goals and staying competitive in the market. For example, if you work strategy (like business development) at a Pharma company, you might help decide what drugs to focus on making or what companies to work with.
  • Operations – Ensure everything works well inside the company, for example, daily business activities, streamline processes, and oversee production and delivery of goods and services. For example, if you work operations at a medical device company, maybe you make sure the actual factories that are making the new device do it efficiently and properly. 
  • Finance – Focus on budgets and finances and evaluate investment opportunities. For example, if you work as an analyst at a VC firm, you might analyze whether a certain biotech company is worth investing in by looking at the finances of the company, the clinical trial data, or the market size.
  • Legal and Compliance – Ensure the company complies with all legal and regulatory requirements. Law stuff. Likely, for us, this would be for example, the medical affairs side of a pharma company or making sure drugs or devices abide by the FDA’s rules.
  • Data Analytics – Look at data and help the company solve problems, identify trends, and evaluate performance. For example, if you work as a healthcare data scientist at an insurance company,  maybe you analyze claims data to try and find patters of fraud or inefficiency.
  • Corporate governance and leadership – leader roles of companies, like the CMO of a healthcare system. Usually, bigger jobs.
  • Human Resources – Recruit, retai,n and develop people in the company. Say you worked as a recruiter in a large healthcare network. This would include finding, hiring, and retaining clinicians to come work at your various hospitals.
• The company actually doing/building things (as much of the specifics of above is delegation)
  • Tech and Innovation – Design, develop, and implement technological solutions to make new products or maintain a competitive edge. Say you worked on tech/innovation at a medical device company. Maybe you worked on creating a new tubing material for endoscopes (cameras that go in people) that is more flexible and durable.
  • Product Development – isn’t this the same as tech and innovation? That’s what I thought initially, but no, Tech development is science-facing, while product development is market-facing. So, for example, using the endoscope example, the product specialists might use already existing tech of a more flexible tube material to help actually make a better endoscope for doctors, while the tech/innovation people might actually be developing a more flexible tube material. Even more simply, a smartphone’s product specialist might aim to create a certain phone with a certain camera quality, battery life, and screen size with already existing tech like touchscreens and processors, while the tech development team might be developing a new type of battery.
• Customer-facing
  • Marketing and Sales – Develop marketing strategies to promote products and services, mainly by interacting with potential customers. For example, if you were a medical marketing manager at a pharma company, you might create educational materials or pamphlets to educate doctors on the benefits of your company’s new drug and why they should prescribe it.
  • Customer/Client Services – Essentially customer service, remember though, there are many levels to this. For example, if you are the head of customer relations at Amazon, that is a huge job. 
  • Public Relations and Communications – manage the company’s public image and communicate with stakeholders and the media. For example, if you are the communications director for a healthcare nonprofit like Doctors Without Borders, you might develop campaigns and movies that show off the work doctors without borders is doing in a positive light.

Specific Career Options

So, how do you use the previous information for specific careers? Combine one of the above categories with one of the below overarching options.

For example, if you know you like product development and health technology, you could reach out to every large health tech company you know and express your interest in product development roles. Now, this is a two-way street, right? At the point of reaching out, you should have some experience in those areas, or you can spin your resume to show how your experience will be worthwhile in those areas.

The most benefit I’ve ever had in learning about these various opportunities was shadowing people in these various roles or reaching out to people on LinkedIn in these various roles and asking to chat about what they do at their job with genuine interest (not just looking for a referral). A 15-minute conversation might reveal more things about the job than you can ever find on Google. A 1-day shadowing experience can save you from 10 years of torture or reveal your dream career. 

Also, when doing these calls and shadowing, if you are a kind, normal, and emotionally intelligent human, they will help you get your foot in the door at these companies as the person you talk to might offer to refer you to a specific position or send you to another person to speak to. 

At this early stage of researching what’s out there, however, I would seriously act as the “buyer” and not the “seller,” trying to learn as much as possible about the various jobs and what your day-to-day life would look like at these places. It is also important to consider what your life might look like if you spend 2, 5, or 10+ years at one of these organizations. Is there upward mobility, or will you hit a ceiling? Will this job help you get other jobs, or will it narrow your options? Do the people that work there seem happy or sad? Overworked or relaxed? Is the company rapidly growing or laying lots of people off? The vibe you get is huge.

Finally, if you are currently working at a hospital or are in medical school, there are usually people with various non-clinical job responsibilities alongside their clinical responsibilities. For example, there are practicing doctors who are also school professors and teach students, principal investigators who spend time on research, or leadership positions (like CIOs) who likely spend>50% of their time working on non-clinical work. These doctors might, for example, treat patients on Monday and Tuesday, work on administrative tasks on Wednesday, and teach classes on Thursday and Friday with the weekends off. 

Maybe you still want to practice medicine but don’t want it to be 100% of your time. That is very possible and might help alleviate some of the burnout you might feel accumulating as a 100% clinical doctor. Usually, however, these opportunities will only open up after you are an attending physician and are a couple of years into practice. If you don’t want to wait, you can jump to the non-clinical path like me!

Alrighty, let’s get into it. What are the non-clinical options?

I’ll break down each job category into Five bullets: 

• What it is
• The good/bad
• Specific careers and Job Titles
• General requirements (finishing medical school vs practicing as an attending for 5 years)
• Salary/hours
• Specific companies to look into and how to get the job.

• Pharma and Biotech
  • What it is: Working on bringing drugs or devices or other therapies to market, including drug development (research, development, and manufacturing), regulatory affairs (ensuring drugs are safe, effective, and high quality throughout their lifecycle, usually working with regulatory bodies like the FDA), and distribution, sales, and marketing. Pharma usually focuses on small molecule drugs, which are chemically synthesized compounds, while biotech companies focus on large molecules called “biologics,” which are derived from living organisms, although this distinction is fading.
  • Good/bad: The good is working on cutting-edge innovations that will literally save lives and change the world, as well as provide a good quality of life and pay. The bad is that normal corporate bureaucracy will likely ensue as these corporations are larger and have a steep learning curve for industry-specific skills like designing clinical trials.
  • Careers:
    • Entry(120k – 200k starting, normal hours)
      • Medical Science Liasion – the bridge between pharma companies and healthcare professionals. You would talk with clinicians or other healthcare professionals about the pharmaceutical company’s new therapies.
      • Clinical Research Associate – oversees clinical trials to ensure compliance with regulations and trial protocols. Usually travel intensive as you are going between the study sponsor (pharma company) and the research site to ensure everything goes well.
      • Regulatory Affairs Specialist – Manages the submission and maintenance of regulatory filings for drug approvals; usually interacts with the FDA.
      • Drug Safety Officer – Monitors and evaluates the safety of drugs. Usually, when there are any adverse events (side effects), you communicate these to regulatory agencies and update the drug labeling as necessary.
    • Mid Level (250k – 400k, potentially longer hours)
      • VP/Director of Medical Affairs – Manages medical strategy for marketed products. You may communicate with stakeholders about the company’s current strategy, such as what the next drugs developed will be.
      • Business Development – helping decide business partnerships and things like what drugs to develop next. Usually, it requires some business experience, such as an MBA or VC experience. Might leverage intellectual property and market analysis to identify promising new drugs or tech to bring to market.
    • Top Level (500k – 2M+, potentially longer hours)
      • Head of R&D – oversees research and development of drugs.
      • CEO/COO/CMO – running operations, including everything medical or company operations.
    • At the entry level, an MD is usually all you need. As you move up, for example, to the CMO position, you usually might need to do so, or the companies will look for board certifications in whatever specialty you are in.
  • Companies: Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Amgen, Genentech
  • How to get the job: Adjust your resume for the role and reach out to recruiters at various companies and anyone you know who currently works in pharma or biotech. For example, if you want to get into R&D, having experience running clinical trials or initial experiments in the hospital and having your name on papers would be helpful. Some companies have fellowship programs (like Pfizer). Docjobs.com also has a large list of possible careers.

• Health Technology
  • What it is: Combining healthcare and technology to develop digital health tools, devices, and systems. For example, if you want to redesign a new EMR like EPIC or work on a telemedicine platform. Or this could even be joining Google Health’s current projects, such as its work with Fitbit, ultrasounds, or other technology.
  • Good/bad: The good is this is a rapidly growing field with potential for significant impact. The bad is it’s quite competitive (like Google,) and the MD might help, but depending on the role you are searching for,it  may not help as much as you think for more tech-oriented roles.
  • Careers
    • Entry Level ($100k – 200k starting)
      • Product Manager – Oversees development of health tech products. Usually, your role as the MD would be to develop information that is actually relevant to doctors and patients. So, usually, at least one year of residency would be required, although there are exceptions.
      • User Experience Consultant – Designing user-friendly healthcare tools. For example, I helped design a patient portal for patients, which was mostly patient-facing. Some programming experience would likely be helpful.
      • Clinical Data Scientist – Someone who would look at EHRs, medical images, or other large swaths of data about patients to help glean actionable information for research and clinical decision-making. Statistical knowledge and programming skills are a must. For example, you might look at colonoscopy data at a hospital system and see if there are trends in increasing or decreasing the frequency of screenings and recommend some solutions to the hospital.
      • Digital Health Strategist – This would create strategies for implementing digital health solutions. For example, if a hospital were going from an all-paper notes system to an electronic system, you would likely have a large role in designing and strategizing this transformation.
    • Mid/High Level ($300k – $1M+)
      • Chief Medical Officer – You would be the big boss, overseeing all medical aspects of the technology. Usually, it would require a board certification and many years of technical experience.
      • VP of Digital Transformation – Lead organizational tech shifts. A hospital system going digital from paper, for example, would be your entire job.
      • CEO/Founder – can be widely variable and lucrative. For example, the founders of Oura Health, the EPIC EHR, HIMS, or WEBMD are very successful. There are no requirements here; you just have to find a solution to a problem. However, knowing the runnings of a hospital system can be very helpful. There are many $100M – Billion dollar companies that help with much less “sexy” things, like organizing billing between the hospital and insurance companies. Exciting stuff here.
  • Companies: Epic Systems, Oracle Health, Teladoc Health, Johnson and Johnson Digital Health division, Google Health, Apple Health, Microsoft Healthcare, Amazon Health, and Medtronic.
  • How to get the job: Technical knowledge and experience would be helpful. Networking would be very helpful with people at these various companies. An MSL role might be a good lead into digital health opportunities or an entry role as a clinical product manager. For FAANG companies, you will be competing with top-level people across the world, and so it will be quite competitive. Referrals and a stellar resume with the MD are necessary.

• Consulting
  • What it is: Advising and helping companies with pretty much anything, depending on the firm. As an MD, you would likely work with healthcare, pharma, or tech companies on strategy, operations, organizational challenges, and innovation. For example, various governments and companies worked with McKinsey to help develop and rapidly roll out the COVID-19 vaccine. 
  • Good/bad: The good is high earning potential, diverse experiences, transferable skills, as well as great job mobility following time at top firms. The bad is long hours, frequent travel, and an intense work environment.
  • Specific Careers
    • Entry Level (120k – 300k)
      • General Management Consultant: could work in many different fields. One month, you may work on reorganizing a hospital system, another month focusing on helping a pharma company launch a new drug, or another month building a financial model for the evaluation of a potential purchase or a biotech company. Often, you would travel to the client’s location and create presentations and recommendations in the form of PowerPoint presentations to client executives. Projects can be anything and everything: strategy, operations, innovation, finances, HR, etc. At certain companies, even as an MD, you may work on things not healthcare-oriented, such as oil or energy.
      • Healthcare Strategy Consultant: Very similar, except you would likely be more targeted towards healthcare solutions.
    • Partner/Senior roles (300k+): This usually entails doing things similar to the above. However, you would be more focused on running teams and selling the company’s services to organizations.
  • Companies, this ranking was not made by me but by a friend who has been working in consulting for 10 years.
    • Tier 1 (Most competitive) McKinsey, Bain, BCG
• Tier 2a, LEK, Oliver Wymann, Deloitte S&O, EY Strategy &
• Tier 2b, Clear View Healthcare Partners, Putnam Associates, Back Bay Life Sciences Advisor
• Tier 3, ECG, ZS Associates, IQVIA , Huron Consulting, Navigant, PWC
• How to get the job: all firms offer general applications online. However, the higher the tier, the less likely it is that it will work unless you have a stellar resume. Usually, referrals are the best bet at getting your foot in the door here. Also, consulting interviews involve this thing called “casing,” which usually requires at least 1 month of preparation but usually more. These are all quite competitive jobs as you will be competing with MBAs and people from IVY league schools.

• Investing
  • What it is: This is a huge category, but it is likely that we would be using medical knowledge (but not necessarily) to evaluate and invest in healthcare and life science things. In general, careers in finance can be broken down into corporate functions, banking divisions, institutional investors, and the rest (like fintech, ESG, and professional advisory). I’m just going to focus on Banking divisions and institutional investors. This is a fairly decent sidestep from medicine unless you work more on the companies that focus on healthcare/life sciences investments, like a health tech VC firm. Very broadly, it will nearly always involve you looking at something and predicting whether this thing is going to make money in the future or lose money in the future, and then, based on that prediction, using various financial techniques to hopefully make money off of your predictions.
  • Good/bad: The good is very high-income potential and lots of innovation. You will learn a lot about finances and evaluating companies and opportunities. The bad is, depending on the job, it could be a riskier time/money investment. There is also a huge learning curve, difficult hours, and a dependence on networks and connections. Much of the money is made from charging a % of the money your company manages for clients. For example, a fee of 1% of $20B of Assets Under Management (AUM) is $200 million dollars, and if there are any profits from the investments, usually the company also takes a larger percent, like 10-20%, of those profits as well.
  • Specific Careers
    • Banking (150k – 300k entry, 500K+ as senior roles)
      • Investment Banking (M&A advisory, Debt Capital Markets, Equity Capital Markets) – This would involve things like doing financial modeling to value companies, working on mergers and acquisitions, and analyzing and presenting recs to senior executives. It can be very long hours, including weekends. At times, 80+ hour weeks. You would join as an associate role.
      • Capital Markets (Research, Sales, Trading) – MD research analysts might analyze trends in healthcare or biotech markets to create investment theses. At the same time, if you work in sales and trading, you might execute trades for institutional clients (large organizations that buy and sell securities as part of their business operations), focusing on equities or debt while interacting with clients frequently.
      • Risk Management (credit risk, market risk, operational risk) – managing financial risks for banks or corporations by identifying and mitigating potential losses.
      • Commercial lending is also available, but it is unlikely to transition after MD (Business banking, commercial banking, commercial real estate).
    • Institutional Investors ($200 – 500k entry, $1M+ at senior levels)
      • Hedge Funds – using pooled capital to pursue high-return strategies in various markets. Honestly, it is over my head as they use a wide range of strategies, including leverage and trading nontraditional things like derivatives, commodities, or crypto. It can be more risky but potentially make a bunch of money. They also have access to investment opportunities that the general public does not. Usually, these are stressful and difficult hours, and there are large barriers to entry. Usually, you would join as an analyst.
      • Private Equity (VC, Buyout Equity) – Review pitch decks of companies that are asking for funding. Conduct due diligence on startup teams and technologies, usually taking a majority stake in companies in hopes of selling later for a return on investment. Usually, hours are not as bad as IB or Hedge Funds, but they an be difficult at times. Usually, you would join as an analyst or associate.
      • (Wealth management and asset management are options, but unlikely transition after MD). 
    • Start your own thing / Angel Investing / Become an accredited investor – This would require a good amount of up-front capital. It could be your own or taking money from investors. Higher risk but higher reward. Anywhere from $0 to $100M+. 
  • Companies: Again, a huge list here. A tier list was sent to me by one of my friends in investing.
    • Top Tier: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Blackstone, KKR Carlyle Group, Bridgewater Associates, Citadel, Renaissance Technologies, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz.
    • Mid Tier: Evercore, Centerview Partners, Lazard, TPG, Warburg Pincus, Bain Capital, Third Point, Perceptive Advisors, HealthCor Management, Madison Dearborn Partners, Summit Partners, RBC Capital Markets, and Jefferies.
  • How to get the job: similar to consulting, however, maybe even more difficult to get into, similar to FAANG tech roles. Usually requires some experience in finance in some way. Referrals, of course, are very important for getting your foot in the door. You will again be competing with people at the top of their field. To make yourself competitive, applying for jobs with some involvement in healthcare/life sciences is probably necessary. Unlike other jobs, though, the need to be an attending or board-certified doctor is much less necessary. In fact, similar to consulting, these companies usually actually prefer someone “newer” to the field of medicine so they can learn the complicated rules and strategies involved in investing. Speak to people in the roles, and try to intern, part-time, or summer associate positions. Goldman Sachs and JPM offer pre-MBA programs for MDs. 

• Entrepreneurship
  • What it is: exactly what you think it is, creating and scaling your own business in whatever you want.  Obviously, it would likely be beneficial to your customers and your % chance of success if you do something involved in healthcare and life sciences, but you can do whatever you want! Unlike most of the other careers, you could do this at any point in your medical career. The creators of Sketchy and Osmosis started their companies during medical school, Amboss was started during residency, and Boards and Beyond was made by an attending doctor.
  • Good/bad: The good is absolute freedom (but that’s also the bad), very high earning potential, and complete control (but that’s also the bad). The bad is it really is up to you to make $0. There is a heavy survivorship bias for medical entrepreneurship stories. You may also receive disapproval from friends or parents as this is a “non-safe” path.
  • Career options:
    • Health Tech Startups, digital tools, and apps – such as creating a wearable device, AI diagnostic tools, or digital health applications. Like the OURA ring.
    • Medical Education platforms – creating a resource to train medical professionals or the public, such as exam prep or study resources.
    • Medical Writing or content creation – YouTube videos, but who would do that?? Lame choice, in my opinion, or blog posts. Can also, of course, blog and use other social media. Also includes writing for other people things like regulatory docs, CME docs, clinical guidelines, manuscripts, or white papers.
    • Biotech or Pharma Startup – developing a new treatment, device, or diagnostic tool. It is likely very difficult to self-fund, but if you have a promising idea or initial data, many companies may invest in your company.
    • Coaching or Consulting – offering paid guidance to individuals or organizations, such as physician coaching or health coaching. Difficult as this would not be medical advice, as you aren’t a practicing doctor, but it could be other coaching advice.
    • Wellness and Lifestyle business – Things like fitness programs, health retreats, or wellness clinics.
    • Nonprofit/advocacy – you could start a company like Doctors Without Borders or a charity for underserved populations.
    • Retail health and products – develop and create healthcare products. For example, I know a very successful anesthesiologist who creates products for other anesthesiologists in the OR. He doesn’t practice anymore. He just invents. You could also make things like a better pill dispenser, sleep aids, nutrition supplements, better scrubs, or crutches that work better.
  • How to get the job: Congratulations, you can get the job whenever you want! Really, all you need to do is identify a pain point or a problem or inefficiency, provide a solution, and then sell that solution. Some very helpful things to do might be a network of co-founders, engineers, mentors, business knowledge, or investors. It won’t be easy, but it can be life-changing (it’s changed my life)! Simply try and try again! Iterate, adapt, iterate, adapt, and so on… Most people are full of ideas, but very few people execute and try things. The more you try (and fail), the higher your chance of success.

• Sales and marketing
  • What it is: selling medical products, pharmaceuticals, or healthcare solutions to hospitals, providers, or directly to consumers or creating campaigns (marketing) to help promote products or services to people or companies. You are pretty much the buyer-facing person for all the companies we are talking about.
  • Good/bad: The good is usually high earning potential if you are good, thanks to commissions, exposure to cutting-edge tech, and transferable skills. The bad is usual dependence on commissions, the high-pressure environment in the form of targets, and lots of travel.
  • Career options (usually 100k starting + commissions)
    • Medical Sales Rep: Build relationships with docs to sell devices or equipment to healthcare providers. Demonstrate products. For example, I remember at the hospital where I worked, we had Da Vinci (a surgery robot) reps around constantly.
    • Pharma Sales Rep: Talk to physicians and staff about drugs and their efficacy and how they might benefit patients.
    • Marketing Manager: Develop campaigns to market and sell products, such as coordinating the launch of a new Da Vinci robot and getting hospitals to purchase it.
    • Companies: include pretty much any Pharma, device, or tech company, as all of these companies have some component of marketing or sales. Agai,n networking helps. Likely, the MD will help, but probably not even necessary. Likely much easier entry than other positions previously spoken about.
  • How to get the job: referrals or reaching out directly to firms lare ikely not as competitive to receive a job offer.

• Public Health and Policy
  • What it is: Government work, with or for, that focuses on improving health systems, addressing societal health issues, or influencing health policy.
  • Good/bad: The good is this is potentially impactful work dwith iverse opportunities and potentially global reach. The bad is gthe overnment is the epidemy of bureaucracy, slow career advancement, and, of course, lower pay. However, if you are getting involved here, your passion for money is likely not as high on your priority list.
  • Career options:
    • Public Health Officer: You would manage public health programs like vaccination drives or blood drives. 
    • Health Policy Advisor: influences healthcare legislation and policies; this would be governmental work that would likely interact with those that create health policies. You would probably advise them on health policies and new positions.
    • Epidemiologist: No medical degree is required, but you would need an MPH. The MD would help, of course. Your focus would be on collecting and analyzing disease patterns and providing insights for interventions. For example, many infectious disease doctors also work as epidemiologists due to their knowledge of infectious diseases. 
  • Companies: CDC, WHO, Kaiser Permanente, RAND Corp, your local/state health departments.
  • How to get the job: Usually, it would require an MPH and an MD. Fellowships and experiences at nonprofits or large government organizations (CDC, WHO, etc.) would help position you as an asset to companies that focus on public policy.

• Insurance
  • What it is: Docs usually focus on reviewing claims, quality assurance, or utilization management. Mainly, when someone needs insurance money, you are the person on the other side rejecting/accepting/modifying those claims.
  • Good/bad: The good is remote work flexibility, predictable hours, and potentially high pay. The bad is the initial reaction from most other physicians, and people will likely be aggressiv,e at least in America, due to bad actors in the industry and a misunderstanding of how insurance actually works. Also, repetitive work, less clinical interaction, and low variety.
  • Career options (150k – 300k entry)
    • Medical Director: evaluate patient cases, make coverage determinations, and collaborate with insurers. Essentially, it is looking over charts and determining how much insurance should be paid out.
    • Utilization Review Specialist: Reviewing hospital admissions and lengths of stay, ensuring treatments meet guidelines and money isn’t being spent unnecessarily, and assessing plans for cost-effectiveness.
  • Companies: UnitedHealth Group, Cigna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Humana.
  • How to get the job: Complete at least one year of residency, but a board certification is usually required. Also, a certification in healthcare quality may be required. Reach out to insurance companies and see if they need it.

• Research
  • What it is: You do research.
  • Good/bad: If you like research, it’s good. If you don’t, it’s bad. It contributes to scientific progress, opportunities for publication, and intellectual challenge (depending). The bad is potentially lower pay, and you will need specific training depending on what research you are doing.
  • Career options
    • Academia (50k – 150k starting) / Industry (60k – 200k starting)
      • Clinical Research Scientist – design, execute, and manage clinical trials. You might design study protocols, work with participants, and analyze trial data.
      • Basic Science Researcher – conduct lab-based studies. This is using things like Pipets and working with mice. You would perform experiments, analyze data, and write papers. 
      • Principal Investigator – you would lead one of the above teams, overseeing lab work, mentoring junior researchers, and managing a budget.
  • Companies: pretty much any academic institution, governmental science institution, or large science company. For example, NIH, Harvard, Amgen, Genentech, Novartis, etc. 
  • How to get the job: a lower-level job should be easy to get with the MD, although it will likely be somewhat grunt work until you develop your own ideas and experiments. In order to excel here, you would likely need to be board certified, potentially get a PhD, have a strong publication record, network with industry or academic leaders, and develop your own research ideas. The institutions will then fund your research or help it get funded.

Clinical Medicine

Options

• Classical Medicine
  • What it is: practicing medicine in large, academic, or private practice
  • Good/bad. The good is you have a safe career, prestige/social status, relatively high earnings right away, and direct patient care. The bad aspects are long hours, high burnout risk, demanding work-life balance, and a pay ceiling.
    • Academic ($200k – $1M)
      • See patients, mentor medical students, publish research, or many other avenues such as leadership within academic medicine.
    • Non-academic ($200k – $1M)
      • Private Practice: see patients, manage the business, and handle finances and everything. Higher earning potential but more difficult.
      • Non-Private Practice: see patients, be a doctor. 
    • Switching specialties: you can always switch specialties if you are not happy with your current specialty. Depending on which way you switch, for example, because I completed one year of IM residency, I could apply that to, say dermatology and skip the first prelim year of derm.
  • Companies: any hospital or office location where you could start your private practice
  • How to get the job: similar to above, but connections, reaching out, and of course, applying to open positions of the specialty of your choice. 

• Medical Education
  • What it is: Remember your teachers in medical school? That’s what this is! Teaching and mentoring medical students. You could also do non-classical medical education, such as working at a company like Amboss or UWorl,d or even start your own company! I wi
  • Good/bad: The good, as opposed to the previous two opportunities, this kinda makes sense as to what actually goes on, right? Professors usually have high job satisfaction, opportunities for research,and  mentoring, and you are shaping future doctors! The bad is you are usually working in academia, which lends to bureaucracy competitive promotions, and lower earning potential compared to other careers.
  • Careers
    • Professor (150k – 500k depending on the level of professorship and other roles at the institution) – deliver lectures, lead small groups, conduct and lead research, serve on committees, etc. Unless you take a smaller role, will usually require you to continue practicing medicine, have a board certification, and have some research.
    • Health Tech Opportunites, as stated previously
  • Companies: any medical school
  • How to get the job: Similar to this, connections in your field at certain schools will help you get the job. Obviously, the higher your performance in medicine, the more options you will have as to where and how to teach.

• Locum Tenens
  • What it is: short-term, flexible clinical assignments in various locations. This can even be international, for example US docs can usually work in Canada, Australia, and the UK. 
  • Good/bad: The good is flexibility, high hourly rates, and travel opportunities. The bad is the lack of job stability and benefits and building a career if you want to build a career.
  • Career options: Depending on the specialty as well as how many hours you work, the rate is highly variable, with an average pay of about $242 per hour in the range of $60 – $500 per hour.
  • How to get the job: various locum tenens agencies like CompHealth, Weatherby Healthcare, or LocumTenens.com, where you can see opportunities to work. Usually, board certification is required, howeve,r some states allow one or two years of residency for limited care, for example Medicare wellness checks.

• Telemedicine
  • What it is: Delivery of patient care virtually.
  • Good/bad: The good is flexible hours and remote work. The bad is the limited scope of practice and lower pay than tin raditional settings. The range of salaries is about half of the normal doctor practitioner, with potentials of about 150k – 600k. Requires board certification.
  • Companies: Teladoc, Amwell, or MDLIVE. 
  • How to get the job: good, potentially negotiate only telemedicine with the hospital you work at depending on your specialty and area of expertise. 

• Concierge Medicine
  • What it is: Being a doctor like normal, however, you are much more available to your patients. They usually pay a subscription for services, and in return, you provide care to a much more limited number of patients. The stereotype that you will go to people’s houses isn’t necessarily true and depends on the practice.
  • Good/bad: The good is higher earnings and better patient relationships. The bad is smaller patient basis and maybe patients that reach out to you very frequently.
  • Career options: any doctor’s specialty can be beyond primary care. Depending on your specialty could offer things like travel medicine, preventative care, or geriatric medicine. Pay is similar to practicing as a regular doctor (200k – 1M).
  • How to get the job: Open or join a practice that offers personalized care plans or concierge plans.

WOW. Ok, that was a lot. I hope it was helpful (I am definitely missing a few) but this should give you a good general idea of what’s offered.

I hope this was helpful. If you are a practicing doctor or in medical school, I strongly recommend if any of these stand out to you, you reach out to someone you know on LinkedIn or in real life who has experience with that career path. What you can learn from a 15-minute conversation can change your life (it happened to me). 

Then, the next level is spending a day with a doctor in that specialty or a person in that other career. This is what I wish I had done sooner and what I think should be required of all medical students. The main problem for us medical students or people who follow the medical path is that we have been following a set path for so long that when it comes to making a highly personal decision, we struggle and we jump to the heuristic we have been using to get where we are now, “what’s the highest paid? What’s the most renowned? Which place has the best name? What did my dad do?” And even if we go through the better process of picking the one we had the most fun with in medical school or felt we had the best impact, most medical students only experience maybe 10 specialties, and there are over ~160! AND we never even considered non-clinical options.

My recommendation to those that are unhappy or want to leave medicine would be:

• Figure out WHY you want to leave. What do you want to do? Do you just need a break? Or can you not imagine doing this for the rest of your life?
• Reach out, around, up and down, speak to someone!
• Work on it part-time
• Save money and secure options before you leave
• Finally, have an open mind. What you like now might not be what you like in 5 or 10 years. There’s a great book, Designing Your Life, where the authors emphasize that following your life “passion” is a recipe for failure. Evidence shows only 20% of college students even have an inkling of their “passion,” Instead, it’s best to explore multiple potential life paths and focuses on curiosity and exploration, taking small steps and experiments to gather insights about yourself and what you enjoy. Not knowing what you want to do isn’t a flaw, and ignoring anyone who tells you, “You need to have it all figured out,” Life is dynamic, and embracing uncertainty allows you to live a more authentic, creative, and happy life!

That’s it, thanks for reading, I hope this helped!

Work Cited:

1. https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/sustainability/40-doctors-eye-exits-what-can-organizations-do-keep-them)
2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10724765/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20Association%20of,left%20practice%20settings%20each%20year