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The total number of non-clinical job opportunities for MBBS physicians in India is approximately 60,000.
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These opportunities can be grouped into the “traditional” and the “newer” types. The number of traditional non-clinical opportunities could be three times of the newer ones.
The work profile of these non-clinical opportunities was discussed in the article “Non-Clinical Opportunities for Physicians In India” published at nonclinicaldoctors.com. The article can be accessed by clicking here.
Traditional Non-Clinical Opportunities
Medical Teacher: India has over
450 medical colleges that produce medical graduates of modern medicine. Each
such college has the departments of Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry,
Pathology, Microbiology, Pharmacology, Forensic Medicine, and Preventive and
Social Medicine which primarily consists of Physician-medical teachers, with
each such college employing around 75 such physicians. Besides the medical
colleges, physicians are additionally employed by standalone dental colleges, nursing colleges, and paramedical colleges. Thus, there
may be over thirty-five thousand physicians engaged in teaching basic
sciences to medical students.
Chief Medical Officer: They may also
be known as the Civil-Surgeon/Health-Officer. Currently, each administrative district of India has around
10 to 20 physicians engaged in solely administering the government-administered
health programs. Given the fact that there are over 600 such districts in
India, the number of physicians engaged in administering health programs may exceed
ten thousand.
Medical Scientist: Over 25 ICMR institutes
dedicated to biomedical research and a similar number of Non-ICMR institutes
dedicated to healthcare research employ several hundreds of doctors in the role of a medical scientist. Each such institute commonly employs five to 10 physicians.
Newer Non-Clinical Opportunities
Medical Diagnostics: Over five
thousand physicians providing radiology services and almost a similar number of
pathologists, microbiologists, medical biochemists put together, providing lab services, thus, resulting in a total number of over ten thousand diagnosis-experts. While many of these personnel work
in the premises of hospitals, the recent trends follow that these are only rarely
attached to the hospital as a business unit and mostly work as independent
entities.
Hospital Administration: These physician
executives usually have a hospital administration qualification or a
general MBA from a business school. Each hospital brings an opportunity for at
least two to five physicians in the role of a hospital administrator popularly
known as the medical superintendent. Given that India has over 500 large
privately owned hospitals having greater than 100 beds, there may be over two
thousand hospital administrator physicians.
Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices: Each
company may require two to five such positions and given that there are around
400 such successful pharma companies. The number of physicians working in these
two roles in India may be up over two thousand.
Information Technology: There are
about 100 odd companies/startups which offer jobs in different healthcare IT segments, such as,
hospital information systems, artificial intelligence, literature review,
data enrichment services, clinical data management, drug discovery, etc. The
number of physicians working in these companies in India may be about one
thousand.
Insurance: With over 30
companies dealing with health insurance products and a similar number of TPAs,
Trusts etc. the insurance industry employs, probably, few hundreds of Indian physicians with two-three physicians working in each organization on an average.
Consulting (NGOs/Business): A hundred-odd Indian physicians work as healthcare consultants, with a select few
of them working independently.
P.S. Many of the non-clinical opportunities in India
accept the bachelor’s degree (MBBS) as an entry requirement, but for maximizing
the career growth and professional satisfaction, a master’s degree (MD/MS) in the
select specialty is preferable. By and large, very few non-clinical careers
demand the physician to hold a doctorate (DM/MCh).
Do you agree with the estimates of the numbers of non-clinical doctors in India? Feel free to share your views.
Views expressed are personal
Last Updated On 09/23/2019 07:30 PM
Author Profile: Dr. Naval Asija is a New Delhi based non-clinical doctor having health administration postgraduate training. Since 2018, he has been writing/blogging full time on health issues. In the past, he has worked for a decade in healthcare, in different organizations, namely Innodata India Pvt. Ltd., Win-Medicare Pvt. Ltd., National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, Integrated Disease Surveillance Project and the National Polio Surveillance Project.
The author can be contacted through https://www.linkedin.com/in/navalasija/
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The work profile of these non-clinical opportunities was discussed in the article “Non-Clinical Opportunities for Physicians In India” published at nonclinicaldoctors.com. The article can be accessed by clicking here.
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