careernav.

General Description

This is an ideal career for analytical and logical thinkers. General Practitioners assess and treat a wide range of conditions, ailments, and injuries, from sinus and respiratory infections to broken bones and scrapes; you refer more serious conditions to specialists for more intensive care. Specialist Physicians broadly work in anaesthesiology, family and general medicine, general internal medicine, general paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, psychiatry and surgery.

A cardiologist is a doctor who specialises in diagnosing and treating cardiovascular or circulatory diseases and conditions. You carry a high level of responsibility, and undertake tasks such as diagnosing heart abnormalities, using medical imaging, assisting a cardiac surgeon, determining treatment plans, and attending follow-up appointments with patients. Radiology, stress testing, ECG, cardiac catheterisation are a few common tools used to diagnose a patient’s condition. Patients are usually referred to a cardiologist from a general practitioner or other health specialist.

You can specialise within a branch of cardiology, including electrophysiology, nuclear cardiology, interventional cardiology, or echocardiology. These specialisations are advanced techniques within the field, and offer additional diagnostic studies for a patient with a heart condition. This is a high reward, high pressure career, as the lives of patients are often in your hands and your work is extremely important to society.

What you do every day

Your day is dependent on the branch of medicine in which you practice. There are days for hospital rounds and days for patient consultation. They all start early and finish late. Irrespective, your career commences as a resident working in the major hospitals. Residency is tough, hard work with long days commencing at 6.30am in the operating room and finishing once the surgeons’ patient list is completed. Your day usually ends around 6pm but once every four nights you may finish at 8am, a 26 hour shift. Patients trust you and you need to be there for them.

Medical training is exhausting, and rewarding both financially and in terms of personal satisfaction. Many physicians and surgeons work long, irregular hours; almost one-third of physicians work 60 or more hours a week.

Personality that best fits this occupation

You must have a desire to serve patients, compassion towards others, be self-motivated, and be able to survive the pressures and long hours of medical education and practice. You also must have a good bedside manner, excellent communication skills, emotional stability and the self confidence to make decisions in emergencies.

Ongoing study throughout your career is necessary to keep up with medical advances so you must have a high degree of motivation and self discipline. Employment opportunities will continue to expand due to a growing and ageing population which will inevitably increase demand for physician services.

Best thing about this career

You can make a huge difference to your patients' lives and to the communities you serve. You are challenged every day as people are different and medical technology constantly changes. The financial rewards can be substantial, so you can afford an affluent lifestyle, but in the end the status, respect and trust afforded to you is the greatest reward.

Worst thing about this career

The downsides of a medical career are: the long time it takes to finally become qualified, knowing that despite what you do people will die anyway, the long hours, and the difficulty in maintaining a work-life balance. There is a growing culture of litigation across the medical industry which has made medical indemnity a topical issue in some specialisations.