Improving Your Health

Diverse Doctor Jobs

7 July 2023

Arthur Bates

If you are currently a doctor or thinking about becoming one, there are many avenues for your career. Due to the diversity of physician jobs, becoming a doctor is one of the more exciting careers.

Practitioner

The most common job for doctors is being a practitioner, but even as a practitioner, there is variety in the types of jobs and settings. Most doctors work out of an office. They may own their own practice or work for a medical group. Doctors often open their own practice for greater control. Some independent doctors operate a cash-only practice and take no insurance. This allows them to spend more time with patients and avoid the "red tape" that comes with insurance companies or working for a medical facility. Other practitioners may work exclusively out of a hospital or also have a private office when they are not at the hospital. Most often these doctors are surgeons, but in other fields, radiologists, pathologists, hospitalists, and critical care doctors only need to work out of the hospital.

Researcher

Although medical research is often done by scientists, doctors play a role in medical research. Their role may be the principal investigator for a particular study or their services may be required to assist with a study. Usually, when doctors are involved in research, they are involved in clinical trials, which differ from other types of research. Clinical trials seek to study procedures, interventions, or medications, and the results of these studies may change the course of treatment for medical or mental health conditions. Researchers also work in various settings, such as clinics or hospitals, with the remaining components of their research done in a lab or office.

Teacher

Because of the "Each one, Teach one" goal in medicine, doctors act as teachers. Doctors may teach at a range of educational institutions, with the most common being medical school. It is the doctor's responsibility to educate the next wave of future doctors in basic and clinical sciences. Basic sciences include anatomy and physiology, microbiology, pathology, pharmacology, and ethics, among other foundational topics. The clinical sciences part teaches upper-level medical students about specialties of medicine. Students go through rotations covering different specialties and this includes shadowing doctors in the hospital and performing some procedures under supervision. Doctors as teachers continue into residency. Depending on the residency program, doctors train residents for three to five years, and residents in the last year of their residency may be responsible for teaching new residents.

Sometimes being a doctor can seem like a monotonous profession when it's actually a diverse career field. Doctors are necessary in all aspects of medicine because their expertise as a practitioner also advances both research and education.

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