Doctor General Practitioner Career Profile | Career Advice and Help Australia CareerNav

Doctor/General Practitioner

Last modified: August 27, 2012, 12:56 PM

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This is an ideal career for analytical and logical thinkers. As a general practitioners, you 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.

Salary p/a
50k - 200k

Qualifications
Post Graduate

Intensity
Sitting

Demand
High

Travel
Low

Conditions
Indoor

Weekly Hours
60+

Pros

Reward knowing you have given birth to, changed or saved a person’s life
Financially attractive - afford the finer things in life in the hours that are your own
Having peoples trust and respect

Cons

Long training period
Excessively long hours, hard work, time poor
Stresses on families and relationships and difficulties with work/life balance

The Bottom Line

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.

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