Even admission to medical school is a first success. A great willingness to perform coupled with the desire to help people can be demonstrated here for the first time and runs like a red thread through the subsequent medical career. Students are guided in a strictly organised manner on their way into everyday hospital life, their own practice or clinic management. Completion of the state examination, the specialist examination and performance in the professional field then automatically lead to the next higher career step. Theoretically, you only have to follow the red thread.
As a licensed doctor, there is no doubt that he or she will lead a comfortable life with a high social status. He or she has ‘made it’.
(Fig.1: Career Path)
However, medical studies only pave the way to a limited extent for the practical demands that future doctors will face in hospitals. They still work more than 60 hours a week and hierarchical forms of communication are not only common at the operating theatre table.While the demands of future generations are changing and the world itself has become fragile and unpredictable (key words VUCA and BANI ), the hospital follows a seemingly rigid system. The Süddeutsche Zeitung magazine prints personal case studies of a journalist who decided against a career in hospital under the heading: How a sick system wears out doctors. And Deutschlandfunk Kultur concludes: Germany's hospitals are running out of staff.
This was preceded by a survey by the Marburger Bund (MB-Monitor 2022), which showed that almost 25% of the doctors surveyed were considering giving up their jobs in hospitals. The FAZ lists some quotes from the survey and even gives reasons against studying medicine. Too much overtime, too few staff, excessive bureaucracy and a lack of digitalisation are mentioned.
Now hospitals are already working on shortening working hours (keyword:4-day week), on open management and are aware of the importance of work-life balance for the next generation. Nevertheless, doctors may be drawn to a different field of work.
There are many different work areas in which doctors are sometimes desperately sought after. Licensed physicians can take other paths besides their usual one and even end up working in a hospital again.
Alternative career paths in medicine
The career prospects available after studying human medicine extend beyond the path to a hospital, practice or university.
(Fig.2:Alternative career paths for doctors)
Working in research as an alternative to the medical profession can be interesting if, for example, an experimental doctoral thesis has already been completed. For research, you have to accept that experiments may not succeed or require long working hours, that there are many applicants for coveted scholarships or funding and that the results have to be published. It is not an easy path, but it is certainly lucrative for those interested. Careers in business are also diverse and range from working in the pharmaceutical industry to medical informatics and management consultancy. As a doctor for medical technology, anyone who has the patience for sometimes detailed work steps is welcome. The pharmaceutical industry, on the other hand, offers doctors a lot of travelling, lectures and research into new drugs. They can even be promoted to a management position.
For doctors who want regular working hours, working in the public sector is another interesting option. Shift work at a hospital or long journeys for the pharmaceutical company are not necessary. However, career opportunities are slower and the salary range is lower. Contact with patients is also limited. But there is plenty of room for manoeuvre. It is possible to work for health protection, health policy and specialised areas such as emergency and disaster medicine or environmental medicine. As a doctor in the public health departement, you can work as a public health officer in the social psychiatric service, the child and adolescent medical service or environmental medicine, depending on your specialisation. This requires further training as a public health specialist, which is as time-consuming as other specialist training programmes for doctors. Finally, there are other career prospects for a medical doctor. For example, as a ship's doctor, journalist or in politics, whose career can extend to the Federal Ministry of Health or the EU Commission Presidency.
A medical degree is therefore very versatile. And according to CV research, detours can also be beneficial, as the Charité notes in its career guide. It is even possible to achieve ‘decisive opportunities’ and ‘increased life satisfaction’. Digitalisation in particular - which is still inadequate in Germany - offers a large field of activity for doctors. In medical informatics, doctors with further training or an additional degree can work on technical devices, databases and software development and are desperately sought after. This means that the path can also lead back to a hospital. After all, when a doctor breaks off their traditional career, they sometimes lose contact with patients, which is crucial for the meaningfulness and motivation of the profession. However, it is still possible to continue working in research in a clinic, for example.
Winding paths in the medical career
Following an alternative career path can also mean being able to return to the medical profession. This is extremely interesting for managers because they can gain experience in business, for example, which is important for managing a hospital.
A return to the medical profession after a longer break is certainly possible due to the shortage of skilled labour. While in traditional career planning it was sometimes an expression of weakness not to have taken the straight path, in today's circumstances it can be seen as an enrichment. For a ‘return’ to a hospital, for example, it is important to update your knowledge. Hospitals can support doctors in this through further training or a mentoring programme. In this way, they could close a further gap in the rampant staff shortage.
Conclusion
Flexibility is important both in communication and in personnel matters, especially in a BANI world that is changing rapidly and creating uncertainty. Taking detours in your career is therefore more of an asset than a drawback. For students and graduates, this is also about planning the next steps in their career. According to Ärztestellen magazine, there may be good reasons to stay in a hospital, for example because it represents certain corporate values. However, those who decide in favour of a different path have a wide range of options open to them.
A degree in human medicine still promises employers a high level of motivation that can develop flexibly in many directions. How contact with patients can be maintained must then be analysed individually. However, there are also ways to reintegrate specialists back into a hospital or practice if they have taken a “wrong turn”. There is a good chance that they will have acquired knowledge along the way that will benefit the organisation.
