Leaving residency; opportunities with MD diploma

[CAP]

I am currently in FM residency. It's hard to see myself continuing and practising in this specialty in the future. What are the job opportunities with a MD degree only?

[zxcccxz]

I mean family medicine is incredibly broad... from family medicine residency, you could anything but family med if you wanted - emergency med, obstetrics, GP-surgeon, GP-anaesthesia, sports medicine, palliative care, dermatology -- the list goes on.

So unless you're just completely done with medicine in general, or think you only want to do something super specific only (e.g., optho), I'd say try to think about how family medicine can be fit to your specific interests.

If you're still keen on leaving clinical medicine, there's many options as well -- med ed, medicolegal, consulting, pharma, research, etc.

[CAP]

Thank you for your reply. In fact, I'm wondering about my interest in medicine in general. I'd potentially like to do something else outside medicine; so leaving residency.

[GH0ST]

I would not give up right away but can you (either via PM) or via this thread @CAP let us know your interest areas generally? It doesn't have to be medicine specific. What province are you in? There's certain jobs that have different qualifications with or without CCFP. 

Let me share my personal experience working in FM as well as in specialties that are not conventional to most physicians... 

1. like @zxcccxz mentioned, there's truly so many possibilities in FM and there are some that I'm learning to this day that I wasn't even close to being aware of. I would not give up right now and at the very least consider slogging the two years to get your CCFP. 

2. I have done my residency in public health and preventive medicine including family medicine and I'm doing my fellowship now in occupational medicine. I have and continue to work as a family doctor part time in various public health related capacities (sexual health, travel medicine, injury/OIS). Within public health, I have worked in areas within public health where I have collaborated with ex-doctors who now work within the health unit as a communicable disease investigator, or infection prevention and control professional. Some have done work moving into a health promotion side with injury prevention or chronic disease prevention. You don't need a medical degree for those work but depending on your role, you may need additional education (particularly if you want to do something like a health inspector). 

3. You can consider being on the business side of things such as being a clinic manager or procurement operator either in primary care or elsewhere, inpatient vs outpatient. 

4. Within injury prevention, you can consider getting your associates certification and do more work in injury prevention. In particular, you can work without seeing patients where you review medical files to answer questions for a workers compensation board or worksafe board regarding if an injury could have been medical or due to their workplace. 

5. You could consider being in a medical director position without seeing patients. You can consider being in a health policy sector or labour union. 

6. You could consider being a researcher and go for a PhD. 

7. You can consider a graduate degree in public health and adjust your career trajectory that way. 

I will say that for the vast majority of positions requiring consulting services or medical opinions, you'll need a minimum of a CCFP. In Ontario, you could be a medical officer of health with a CCFP and a graduate degree in public health (you don't need to do a residency in PHPM but most people do). I cannot emphasize how many doors having a CCFP will have for you to even pursue a career tangentially related to health. I'm happy to talk to you more in the future. 

- G 

[rmorelan]

On 9/22/2024 at 2:58 PM, CAP said:

Thank you for your reply. In fact, I'm wondering about my interest in medicine in general. I'd potentially like to do something else outside medicine; so leaving residency.

Any idea of where your other interests may lie? There a few routes you can go - some of which may be easier if you finish residency even if you aren't practicing it.