I honestly am thinking of not being a doctor anymore and applying for an alternative career, but I don’t know where to start or what to do.
Any advice?
Re: I want to change my career…
It’s well and good that you know what you don’t want to do, but you also need to figure out what you *do *want to do.
What subjects/disciplines interest you? What kind of a lifestyle do you want (financial remuneration, travel for work, flex hours, work from home) and what careers are actually in demand and how much training/what qualifications do you need.
You need to answer some questions for yourself, before anyone else can give you some suggestions.
Re: I want to change my career…
i don’t mean to offend or come across rude, i’m just curious. for a person who puts in so much effort, passion, time and commitment to become a doctor. how can you decide you just don’t want to do medicine after 2 years of qualifying?
There are so many people I know how are doctors but not working as one. If you want to go into something that’s related to health care… go in research, health policy making, get mph and go in administrative. I think your best option would be research if that interests you. You can get PhD in it.
Re: I want to change my career…
Thats the thing I don’t know what is available to me…since age 16 its been medicine medicine medicine - now I feel completely deskilled all I know is…how to be a doctor. I have some transferable skills like communication, leadership, prioritising, dealing with very difficult situations and people, learning quickly and on the job and managing stress but that is all so general.
I don’t find medicine creative enough - it bores me on some days :(.
I don’t even know how to work out what I want to do :(.
Im moving to toronto/GTA soon so it could be a clean slate for me.
The lifestyle I want is yes to be financially stable, something that keeps me busy but doesn’t have night shifts etc, i dont mind travelling for work and I am not really into the working from home thing.
Re: I want to change my career…
I have done a year of research and its not for me 
but things like health care policy making sound interesting - what do you mean by go in administrative?
Re: I want to change my career…
because working as a doctor is very different to being a medical student.
Re: I want to change my career…
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Re: I want to change my career…
hmm yeah that’s understandable. do you want to remain in the science field or find something different altogether?
Re: I want to change my career…
- Do you want to/can you afford to go back to school to update your skills if need be?
- Are there any professional options connected to being a doctor (allowing you to leverage your medical training) that would be an interesting career?
To me the first thing that comes to mind is a consultant of some sort - insurance consultant, medical HR consultant, policy writer/advocate - but how interesting or creative these particular professions are to you is a personal question.
If you leave medicine behind altogether, then the sky is the limit, but you need to figure out what satisfies your need for creativity.
The GTA job market is interesting - there are non-traditional career choices out there, but you need to know what you want to do.
Re: I want to change my career…
The thing is I dont even know where to start what the thinking process is, ive never had to apply for a job - from medical school you fill out a form and you just get given a job there is no resume, interview no real thinking required.
Im just so unhappy in my job right now - I don’t have the motivation to do the exams etc required to progress further.
Re: I want to change my career…
I am prepared to go to school but I am not sure if I can afford it right now as my wedding is costing a bomb and I will be out of work and cant ask the future husband to pay for it all as he is pretty young in his career too.
I have looked into consultancy but they require a certain amount of experience such as 3 years or 5 years etc - So i dont even know where to start with that!
I am happy to leave medicine behind altogether but I feel so blank
I need to think like a graduate with a more generic non vocational degree but my brain is so conditioned to this bloody medical path. This is the first real time im actually sitting down an addressing this issue.
Re: I want to change my career…
^ Moving to the GTA, you will have to do a boatload of exams to qualify here. If I’m not mistaken, there’s no reciprocity that automatically recognizes foreign qualified doctors (though others can tell you more and correct me if I’m wrong).
What do you connect with being creative? Something in the fine arts discipline or something that’s entrepreneurial and therefore gives you control over a “project.”
Re: I want to change my career…
If you are scared of pumping fresh blood in sick veins, how about pumping the gas in cars?
Re: I want to change my career…
switch to pharmacy-
Re: I want to change my career…
Ive looked into a lot of depth into the doctor stuff - I know what I need to do to achieve it and many I know successfully have - the question is 1. do i want to and 2. if i go down that path do I have the motivation to.
I associate creative with being given a task to complete or a problem to solve and then using resources to make it happen quickly and efficiently and then seeing the result of it a solid process.
I find in my current job that everying all blurs into one its so blah going around zombified at night drawing blood and sticking in cannulas and re-writing drug charts does not stimulate me.
The ONLY days which stimulate me are the few days I work in ER.
Re: I want to change my career…
A doctor cannot just become a pharmacist - Ill have go back and do atleast 4 years of uni.
Re: I want to change my career…
damn, all that hard work for nothing. what a waste. It’s one thing if u put in years and decide it’s not for you but, so early in your “career”?
Re: I want to change my career…
One of my friends from university in the UK became a doctor, practiced for 18 months, then decided to become an investment banker instead. He makes more money and works fewer hours than he did as a doctor… (don’t get me wrong, it’s still a lot of hours).
Another one of my family friends in the UK got his medical degree from Cambridge University and then immediately became an investment banker.
And one of my dad’s colleagues at the bank he used to work at in London was also a former doctor.
Since Toronto is the financial capital of Canada… how do you feel about banking?
Re: I want to change my career…
Sounds like something I could explore for sure!
How did they do it?? Lots of these jobs want experience - how did they get round that?