<p>So what can you do besides practice and research? I'm specifically wondering if you can get a job as a professor anywhere (med or grad or undergrad) or maybe if you were a surgeon could you work for a company like Stryker to help with R&D on new tools and techniques?</p>
<p>Consulting work (like what you are asking about), law, health policy, hospital management, teaching. Basically, almost all careers are open to you with an MD.</p>
<p>^ Badass. Always nice to know I’ve got options if Obama or a future president drives our healthcare system down the wrong road.</p>
<p>Well… If you are a professor at a medical school you will be doing at least one of clinical care or research. Probably both. So that is no really a different career path.</p>
<p>For the most part the medical device companies have engineers who design and construct the devices. They rely on clinically active docs to evaluate and refine them. Someone with an MD, but who is not practising medicine, would be of limited value. They need people who not only once were clinically skilled, but who do it every day.</p>
<p>The compensation for MDs in any area will largely be determined by the pay for doing clinical work. People pay high rates to docs who do other things because that is the market price for their services. If an hour of an MD’s time drops in value, then so would the rate businesses will pay for their advice. Capitalism.</p>
<p>If you really want to do something other than clinical work or research, should should think carefully about heading into medicine. Medical school and training are exclusively devoted to preparing you for these two career paths. If that is not what you want, then it could be a long, unpleasant experience.</p>
<p>Nobody is going to seriously cut physician wages. Nurse strikes are bad enough.</p>
<p>Nurses have unions.</p>
<p>Doctors don’t need them (and technically the AMA is considered to be a “union” of sorts).</p>
<p>Not sure about different options for surgeons besides practice and teaching at Hospitals, however, if you consider other specialities such as Neurology, Oncology, Peds, Infectious Disease etc, there certainly are other options.</p>
<p>These are Clinical Research and Public Health Policy at the FDA, NIH, CDC, or Pharmaceutical Industry.</p>
<p>I have seen MDs as Heads of Regulatory, Clinical Pharmacology, Clinical Research, Clinical Operations, Medical Affairs, and In-licensing/Business Development* departments within Pharma and within the FDA (except*).</p>
<p>Some have risen to CEO level in Pharma (Daniel Vasella comes to mind. He is the CEO of Novartis Pharma).</p>