Physician business ideas - Job Ratings - The Good News and Bad News for Physicians

CareerCast.com, a job search portal, is out with its ratings of the 200 “best” and “worst” jobs based on 5 criteria – stress, work environment, physical demands, and income.

• The good news that the income for physicians (psychiatrists $108,000, family physicians $167,000, and surgeons $369,000) far surpasses the average of best ten jobs ($73,500) and ten worst jobs ($33,200).

• The bad news is that combination of high stress, negative work environment, greater physical demands makes physician jobs relatively undesirable in the eyes of the job search firm. Psychiatrists are ranked 100, family physicians 142, and surgeons 156 out of the 200 rated jobs.

Here are the 10 “best” jobs.

Ranking

1-10 – Mathematician, Actuary,
Statistician, Biologist, Software
Engineer, Computer System
Analyst, Historian, Sociologist,
Industrial Designer, Accountant.

And here are the 10 “worst” jobs.

Ranking 190-200

Construction worker, Iron
Worker, Roustabout,
Garbage Collector, Roofer,
Emergency Medical Technician,
Seaman, Tax Driver, Diary
Farmer, Lumberjack

And here are the rankings of three physician specialities.

100. Psychiatrist
142. Physician (Primary Care)
156. Surgeon

The only surprise here is that physician specialties are ranked relatively low in the eyes of job search firms, even though a shortage of physicians exists and health care is among the few growth sectors in the U.S. economy.

Otherwise, I see no surprises.

• The “best jobs” go to knowledge workers, many of whom deal with finances and IT jobs, others with professions, like history and sociology. Most are desk jobs. These jobs have desirable working environments, low physical demands, low stress, decent incomes, and work weeks averaging about 30% less than physicians.

• The “worst jobs” have tough , often dangerous, work environments, high physical demands, slightly greater stress than health professional jobs, but with lower incomes, and shorter work weeks . The “worst jobs” tend to go to mostly non-college graduates who work with their hands, often in stressful environments and who earn much less than physicians.

Not Too Fine A Point

I do not want to put too fine a point on all of this Most of what is presented by the search firm is self-evident and shows the value of an education, and, among health professionals, the long hours, adverse working conditions, and stress under which its practitioners work.