• Introduction
In this article, we explain possible jobs for doctors in Germany other than in hospitals (🇩🇪 das Krankenhaus) and clinics (🇩🇪 die Praxis). We divided these jobs into two categories:
(1) Job “certainly” requiring a German permanent medical license (🇩🇪 die Approbation)
(2) Jobs that might not require it.
If you have any doubts or need more clarification, feel free to ask any time in the main group of Facharzt JETZT on Facebook and Telegram (all Telegram groups will be added as a folder). This article is a guide to enhance your understanding of the topic; however, it should not be your sole resource. Always consult official websites for the most accurate and up-to-date information (you can read our full disclaimer here).
• Who is this article for?
(1) Doctors who do not want to work with patients or have contact with blood and contagious materials
(2) Doctors who are afraid not to be able to get a permanent medical license in Germany (🇩🇪 die Approbation) (because of recognition difficulties or not passing the exams 😨)
(3) Doctors who do not want to have night shifts or work on weekends (You can read this article too: “🇩🇪 Specialties without night shifts for doctors in Germany“)
(4) Doctors searching for job positions with more work-life balance (You can read this article too: “🇩🇪 Doctors in Germany: Work-life balance“)
Working clinically would secure you in many specialties more money (1,5-6x more, depending on your position). We explained the salaries of doctors in hospitals in this article and in clinics in this article. Therefore, if you are sick of working clinically, think maybe of reducing your working hours. Because specialists earn a decent amount of money, you can have a half-time job as a specialist and nonetheless would be getting almost the same salary as a researcher in full time.
• Possible jobs:
We explain the possible jobs here:
• Job that “always” require a German permanent medical license (die Approbation):
• Blood banks
• Telemedicine
You will work online, but you need to be a specialist first. The good thing about this job, you can work from outside Germany (not sure if the laws allow that in all specialties). So, you can be on holiday the whole time in Thailand (where they have day and in Germany they have night) and be doing night shifts as a tele-radiologist or tele-neurologist and earning all the extra bonuses for the night shifts. See this App as an example: TeleClinic.
• Ship doctor (der Schiffsarzt)
There are large cruise ships containing hundreds and sometimes thousands of tourists and they travel around the world. Above a certain number of passengers, they are required to have a doctor on board. This could be you traveling for free around the world and also being paid for that 🥳😅
• Occupational medicine (die Arbeitsmedizin)
This is a specialty by itself. A part of the residency period could be in hospitals, but is short. After finishing it, you could be working in factories and other facilities, examining the health of the workers. This job could include traveling from one place to another.
• Jobs that “sometimes” require a German permanent medical license (die Approbation):
• Research
Sometimes there are studies that require doctors to be conducting them. For example, a company is testing a new medication and is collecting data from patients. Please notice that you are not doing research here. You are simply helping a research team and being paid for your work. This is something else as doing a Master’s or Ph.D. degree.
Why would doing research would “sometimes” require a medical license?
Am I not working in a lab or doing things like statistics, research review or medical writing? You are correct. But some research topics or jobs require contact with patients, doing a physical examination and taking blood samples. In this case, without a medical license, you are not allowed to do this. If this is a must for the research, you would probably be not accepted for the position.
• Academic route
To do a Master’s or PhD degree. We explained that here in detail: link.
• Insurance companies
• Pharma companies
• Tell me where you work and your specialty, I tell you your income
Where you work and your specialty determine your income as a medical doctor in Germany! We explained the possible working places and how much money they could generate for the different specialties in the following article: link.
• Do you know other possible jobs? Please write a comment.
Want to learn more? Questions?
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