Career prospects and various options for M.B.B.S candidates

Career prospects and various options for M.B.B.S candidates

Clinical practice with the degree:
One of the options would be to start one’s own clinical practice with the knowledge acquired in the five and half year course of M.B.B.S. It was the major option in olden days where the specialties were not much developed and very few specialties with very few colleges offering those were there. But the scenario has changed over the years, that there are very specialized doctors for each and every problem which has been possible with technological advancements in the field of medicine. Also the students these days are not well equipped with required clinical skills to practice on their own. Actually this is due the fact that every M.B.B.S student is expecting to join a specialty and not keen on learning as undergraduate itself.

Again this clinical practice can be in government sector or private sector. In Govt. sector again you can be a regular doctor recruited for fulltime or on a contract basis (For those who work as a regular doctor will get a 50% quota in the postgraduate admissions in the state of Andhra Pradesh). In private sector you can join a corporate hospital as a D.M.O (duty medical officer) or maintain one’s own clinic.

Going for a specialty after M.B.B.S:
This is the biggest option for which everyone is looking forward to after their M.B.B.S completion. It is as hard as it is charmful to do this. This is because there are very less postgraduate seats and they are even few for each specialty. It is very hard to keep up your passion (course of interest) and college of interest at the same time, if you have to get a seat under merit quota. Usually many of them take long breaks of one to two years (if serious) to prepare for the PG entrance. One has the option to fight in the entrance of their respective states or in the central exams like AIIMS, JIPMER, PGI Chandigarh. There are several types in going for a specialization. One is a 3 year M.D/M.S course, second one is a 2 year pgDiploma courses like Dch (diploma in child health), DGO(diploma in gynecology and obstetrics, DMRD (diploma in medical radiology and diagnostics) e.t.c Apart from these two we have an option of NB(diploma of the national board) in all of the mentioned specialties. It is equivalent to doctorate (MD) course as it is also of 3 year duration. DNB can be obtained by clearing the centralized entrance test after completing three years of postgraduate training in hospitals recognized by the national board, New Delhi.

USMLE (United States medical licensing exam):
Clearing the United States medical licensing exam and taking up a specialty as an IMG (international medical graduate) there would be one great option to go. USMLE is a multi level exam, conducted in 3 steps. After clearing the steps one has to apply for the interviews and get selected to get residency(PG) in a specialty. One has to bear in mind that it is a global platform and highly competitive. Moreover it is a time bound and money bound process. It is also risky until you get a residency in the hospital interview.

Masters degrees other than clinical M.D s from countries like U.S:
As we have already mentioned to be eligible to practice in U.S, you need to clear the steps in USMLE and then complete the residency. Other options of higher studies in U.S are M.S( master of science) in public health- MPH, masters in health administration- MHA which are something similar to hospital management in India that I have mentioned above but more broad and superior to Indian degree. After that you can settle in hospital administration or health care delivery systems in U.S /abroad or India. Coming to other master degrees that are offered in U.S universities, we have a gamut of subjects like pre-clinical like M.S anatomy, M.S physiology, M.S biochemistry, M.S biomedical engineering, M.S medical informatics, M.S molecular biology, M.S genetics, M.S biotechnology, M.S geriatric medicine and ageing, M.S neuroscience, MS clinical psychology and many other upcoming courses. For this you need to have a valid GRE(general) score and a TOEFL score