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Doctor/General Practitioner*

Last modified: July 27, 2010, 09:54 AM
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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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