FUTURE PROSPECTS

Freshly out of medical college as a trained medical graduate, ABC had dreams in his heart of the services he would bestow upon the world as a newly qualified medical professional. Although he knew his prospects as “just a medical graduate” were few and to demonstrate the world his true potential he would have to climb the mountain of POST GRADUATION, his hopes were undeterred. And so began he a long journey which would unfold his hidden destination as a medical personnel…

But little did he know that this tiring journey for his search of the medical specialty of his choice and requirement was in fact … tiring … and frustrating … and misleading … and confusing …

Does this incidence sound familiar to you? Do you find yourself nodding your head when you put yourself in a similar position regarding the future of your post graduate degree? Does the thought of “What Next After MBBS” leave you with cold feet and sweaty palms???

Then read on …

It has been recognized as a pretty common trend of students preferring to take up alternate professions after completing their MBBS. Does it sound weird and unlikely???

Then you’d be surprised to know that more and more medical graduates are preferring to taking up jobs and occupations which do not require in anyway, examining patients, making a diagnosis or writing prescriptions … !!! Or even a fairly large number of students are preferring to do their Post Graduation in the Unconventional Branches…

Let us take a peak into the various job opportunities which might present upon us after we cross the great sea of MBBS …

Hospital Management and Administration

Hospital Administration is concerned with planning, organizing, staffing, coordinating, controlling and evaluating health services for the community to provide maximum patient care of superior quality at low cost so as to reduce morbidity and mortality. This branch has an extremely bright future as large number of corporate hospitals, industrial house sponsored hospitals and multinational hospitals are being established and as newer diseases, newer diagnostic technologies, day-care surgeries are coming up, need for trained hospital administrators and managers will be increase exponentially.

Career in the Armed Forces

The Army Medical Corps provides promising and challenging career for medical graduates as Short Service Commissioned (SSC) Officers. Both male and female candidates who have passed their final MBBS examination in first or second attempt only and have completed their internship are eligible for grant of short service commission in the Army Medical Corps.

Being a Medical Officer of Armed Forces Medical Services, the candidate on grant of commission is liable to be employed as per service requirement in any part of country or abroad in Army, Navy or Air Force. They may have to work independently in the units allotted to them.

Doctors on commissioning will be granted the rank of captain or equivalent rank in Navy and Air Force in the scale of Rs.15,600 –Rs.39100 plus grade pay of Rs.6,100 and Military Service Pay (MSP) Rs.6,000, non-practicing allowance at the rate of 25 per cent of the basic pay and dearness allowance and the total emoluments at the minimum pay scale at the time of joining will be approximately Rs.42,000 per month.

MBA

If you are a person who feels that Medicine is an extremely specialized field, instead a career in business would provide a larger canvas to explore and help broaden horizons, then doing a Masters in Business Administration would be a welcome option for you. After doing an MBA you can pursue a position in industries such as

   * Healthcare services delivery (hospitals, hospital chains)

    * Pharmaceutical companies

    * Biotech companies

    * Healthcare consulting

    * NGOs

And the functional areas you can get in are –

    * Healthcare services delivery (hospitals, hospital chains)

          o Marketing and customer relations

          o Sales

          o Business development

          o Health administration

    * Pharmaceutical and biotech companies

          o Marketing and customer relations

          o Sales

          o Operations

          o Business development

          o Licensing

          o Discovery project management and evaluation

          o Medico-marketing

 having done an MBBS before the MBA would give a better insight into the various duties you are expected to fulfill in a business oriented job in the Medical Field. This way there would be utilization of your 5 ½ years at medical college as well as fulfillment of your innate aspirations.

Emergency Medicine

Emergency medicine is a medical specialty in which a physician receives practical training to care for patients with acute illnesses or injuries which require immediate medical attention. This might be the field for you is you think that the usual challenges a doctor faces are not challenging enough for you. EM is an electrifying branch with an increasing popularity and need in India.

Master In Medical Science And Technology (MMST)

A three-year Masters in Medical Science and Technology (MMST) programme is offered for MBBS graduates, with a view to imparting engineering skills to medical professionals and training them for state-of-art medical research in the frontier areas of medical imaging and image analysis, telemedicine and Tele Surgery, biosensors and medical instrumentation, biomarkers and their applications in diabetes and oncology, reproductive biology, contraceptive development and infertility management, molecular biology and tissue engineering, preventive and promotive health-care, comprehensive health information system for disease management, development of cancer drugs, biomedical implants and devices, brain research and cognitive neuroscience, and nanotechnology and microelectro-mechanical systems in medicine.

Medical Music Therapy

Music Therapy is the use of a selected music to produce the same vibrations of the body, played uninterrupted for a while, to obtain the desired effect. It is a radical branch which has started gaining pace in India. The Apollo Hospitals - Chennai has a music therapy wing in the name of ‘Prahalad’. Music can be used as therapy in hyperactive children, for speech fluency and stuttering, in cardiac problems and in the early stages of pregnancy.

Sports Medicine

Sports medicine is concerned with the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of sport-related injuries. Due to the huge vacuum exist in sports science and medicine, India needs top-flight trainers, physiotherapists, nutritionists, psychologists, physiologists and masseurs and biomechanics for keeping the athletes and sportsperson fighting fit.

Specialists in sports medicine are hired by the Sports Authority of India, and that of respective states, sports federations and large private hospitals and sports clubs and institutes.